zakirullin/mess

Convenient array-related routine & better type casting


Keywords
php, json, array, language, type, assert, cast, mess
License
MIT

Documentation

Mess

Build Status Psalm coverage PHP from Packagist Latest Stable Version GitHub commits Software License

We face a few problems in our PHP projects

  • Illogical type casting (PHP's native implementation is way too "smart")
  • Pointless casts like array => float are allowed
  • Boilerplate code to work with arrays (check if isset(), throw an exception, cast the type, etc.)

Consider an example:

$userId = $queryParams['userId'] ?? null;
if ($userId === null) {
    throw ...
}
$userId = (int)$userId;

Way too verbose. Any ideas?

$userId = (new Mess($queryParams))['userId']->getAsInt();

You can mess with API responses/configs/whatever:

$mess = new Mess($response);
$book = new Book(
    $mess['title']->getString(),
    $mess['isBestseller']->getBool(),
    $mess['stats']['rating']->getInt(),
    $mess['tags']->getListOfString()
);

Generics support (Psalm compatible)

  • getListOfString()
  • getListOfInt()
  • getArrayOfStringToString()
  • getArrayOfStringToBool()
  • etc.

Installation

$ composer require zakirullin/mess

Dealing with mess

$queryParams = new Mess(['isDeleted' => 'true']);
$queryParams['isDeleted']->getBool(); // UnexpectedTypeException
$queryParams['isDeleted']->getAsBool(); // true

$value = new Mess('25');
$value->getInt(); // UnexpectedTypeException
$value->getAsInt(); // 25
$value->getString(); // '25'

$value = new Mess('25a');
$value->getInt(); // UnexpectedTypeException
$value->getAsInt(); // UncastableValueException

$config = new Mess(['param' => '1']);
$config['a']['b']->getInt(); // MissingKeyException: "MissingKeyException: a.b"
$config['a']['b']->findInt(); // null
$config['param']->getInt(); // UnexpectedTypeException 
$config['param']->getAsInt(); // 1
$config['param']->findInt(); // UnexpectedTypeException
$config['param']->findAsInt(); // 1

As you might notice, type casting is performed while using (find|get)As* methods. Having trouble grasping get*()/find*()? Check out brilliant Ocramius's slides.

Type casting with Mess is rather predictable

'\d+' => int // OK
'buzz12' => int // UncastableValueException
bool => int // UncastableValueException
array => int // UncastableValueException
object => int // UncastableValueException
resource => int // UncastableValueException

Fairly simple, isn't it? Let us fail fast!

Why one needs THAT naive type casting?

Let's imagine a library that is configured this way:

$config = [
    'retries' => 5, // int
    'delay' => 20, // int
]

// Initialization 
$retries = $config['retries'] ?? null;
if ($retries === null) {
    throw new MissingConfigKeyException(...);
}
...
$retries = (int)$retries;
$delay = (int)$delay;

Client-side code:

$config => [
    'retries' => [5, 10, 30], // (int)array => 1
    'delay' => true, // (int)bool => 1
]

No matter if that's a misuse, or a result of major update: The system will continue to work. And that's the worst thing about it. It will continue to work, though, not in a way it was supposed to work. PHP is trying to do its best to let it work at least somehow.

The library comes in handy in a variety of scenarios 🚀

  • Deserialized data
  • Request body/query
  • API response
  • Config
  • etc.