Helper Proposal: export

[henzeb]

I often have situations where I need to be able to configure things extensively. Think of the Scheduler. Think of generating Images. Of course, I can create an extensive piece of code that parses an array, but that will not always cover everything and makes the code quite unreadable.

I can also add in strings pointing at (invokable) classes, but that requires me to instantiate the object before hands, I can add in closures, as it is an array.

The Problem

While the error message says: "Your configuration files are not serializable", config:cache does not actually serialize the code. It uses var_export to print it into a cache/config.php file. This makes any solution to serialize objects pointless.

The proposal

I propose a export(); helper.

use Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\CallbackEvent;

return [
    'cron' => [
        'enabled' => false,
        'configure' => export(
            function (CallbackEvent $event) {
                $event->hourly();
            }
        )
    ]
];

The export helper returns an object that serializes the given variable and implements the __set_state to return the unserialized object. if it's a string already and a FCQN, it will resolve the object before returning.

to allow the code to function when not cached, we should implement __get __call and and __invoke as well. Not sure if someone would want any setters, but imo this should be immutable.

[henzeb]

For all who care: I have made a package out of it. I went with exportify and an automated version of transforming elements in the config array when calling config:cache, which is much cleaner. I also did not add the resolve feature, as I wanted the package to be useful outside laravel installations.

Just install with: https://github.com/henzeb/var-export-wrapper