Formats

Serializer and Deserializer turn a document into a string and back, across three formats: json, yaml and xml. Both resolve the right format handler by name internally, so the same two classes are the only thing a consumer ever needs, regardless of format.

Supported Formats

Serializing a Document

use Derafu\Ubl\Service\Serializer;

$serializer = new Serializer();

$yaml = $serializer->serialize($quotation, 'yaml');
$json = $serializer->serialize($quotation, 'json');
$xml = $serializer->serialize($quotation, 'xml');

Deserializing a Document

use Derafu\Ubl\Service\Deserializer;

$deserializer = new Deserializer();

$quotation = $deserializer->deserialize($yaml, 'yaml');

An explicit target class can be passed as a third argument to skip or override the automatic detection described below:

use Derafu\Ubl\Oasis\Doc\Quotation;

$quotation = $deserializer->deserialize($yaml, 'yaml', Quotation::class);

Self-Describing Content

Neither json nor yaml needs an explicit target class to know what to deserialize into: the single top-level key of the decoded content names the document type directly, e.g. {"Quotation": {...}} or Quotation: at the top of a YAML file. xml works the same way through its own mechanism: the document type is read from the XML root element (<Quotation xmlns="...:Quotation-2">).

Serializer::serialize() always wraps json/yaml output under that same top-level key (never a bare array), so what it returns for one format is exactly what Deserializer:: deserialize() accepts back for that same format.

Value and Attribute Representation

Every class also has toArray()/fromArray()/jsonSerialize(), used internally by the json and yaml handlers and available directly to a consumer who wants a plain array with no format involved:

$array = $quotation->toArray();
$quotation = Quotation::fromArray($array);

Keys are the UBL element and attribute names, not PHP property names. A value with no attributes is a plain scalar:

['ID' => 'Q-001', 'IssueDate' => '2026-01-15']

A value that carries an attribute, like an amount’s currency, uses the @value/@attributes form instead:

[
    '@value' => '100',
    '@attributes' => ['currencyID' => 'EUR'],
]

Optional Dependencies

symfony/yaml is not a hard dependency of this package: the yaml handler is only autoloaded the first time a caller actually serializes or deserializes with 'yaml'. A consumer who never touches that format never needs it installed; one who does gets PHP’s own “Class not found” error if it is missing, with no extra exception type or class_exists() guard in between.