Asymmetric serialization/deserialization using Symfony Serilizer - php

Question

I'm using Symfony 5.4 and its Symfony/Serializer component.
I receive a JSON payload like the following one:
{
"name": "Truck",
"age": 23
}
I wish I could deserialize it to the following model, where the name JSON field would be mapped onto the lastname User class attribute:
class User {
protected lastname;
protected age;
}
My issue here is that the deserialization fails since there is no name field in my model.
Sure I could add a name field to my User model, and write its getter/setters as follow and use Serializer's group not to serialize the name field :
public function getName(): string
{
return $this->lastname;
}
public function setName(string $name): User
{
$this->lastname = $name;
return $this;
}
But this looks hackish. Anyway, on top of the aforementioned, I need any User entity to be serialized to :
{
"lastname": "Truck",
"age": 23
}
As a consequence, I can not use #SerializedName('name') here.
What would be the cleaner way to achieve this?

Answer 1

You can implement an AdvancedNameConverterInterface.
A very simple, naive implementation:
<?php declare(strict_types=1);
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\NameConverter\AdvancedNameConverterInterface;
class UserNameConverter implements AdvancedNameConverterInterface
{
public function denormalize(string $propertyName, string $class = null, string $format = null, array $context = [])
{
if ($class === User::class && $propertyName === 'lastname') {
return 'name';
}
return $propertyName;
}
public function normalize(string $propertyName, string $class = null, string $format = null, array $context = []): string
{
return $propertyName;
}
}
Check for the docs here.
To enable it in the configuration, you should be able to do:
framework:
# ...
serializer:
name_converter: 'App\YourNamespace\UserNameConverter'