# NAME

Object::Serializer - General Purpose Object Serializer

# VERSION

version 0.000009

# SYNOPSIS

    package Point;

    use Moo;
    use parent 'Object::Serializer';

    has 'x' => (is => 'rw');
    has 'y' => (is => 'rw');

    package main;

    my $point = Point->new(x => 10, y => 10);

    # serialize the class instance into a hash
    my $hash = $point->serialize; # { __CLASS__ => 'Point', x => 10, y => 10 }

# DESCRIPTION

Getting objects into an ideal format for passing representations in and
out of applications can be a real pain. Object::Serializer is a fast and simple
pure-perl framework-agnostic type-less none-opinionated light-weight primitive
general purpose object serializer which tries to help make object serialization
easier. This module is useful in situations when you have blessed objects you
wish to produce hash representations from which you can store directly or
convert to JSON, YAML, or XML. This module does not currently support
deserialization.

# METHODS

## serialize

The serialize method expects an object and returns a serialized (hashified)
version of that object.

    my $hash = $self->serialize;
    my $hash = $self->serialize($object);
    my $hash = $self->serialize($object, marker => undef); # no marker

## serialization\_strategy\_for

The serialization\_strategy\_for method expects a reftype and a sub-routine. This
method registers a custom serialization strategy which will be used during the
collapsing of the reference type specified.

    CLASS->serialization_strategy_for(
        REFTYPE => sub { ... }
    );

# EXTENSION

Object::Serializer can be used as a serializer independently, however, it is
primarily designed to be used as a base class for your classes or roles. By
default, Object::Serializer doesn't do anything special for you in the way of
serialization, in-fact, it is little more than a wrapper around [Data::Dumper](http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Data::Dumper).
Additionally, you can hook into the serialization process by defining your
serialization strategy using your own custom serialization routines which will
be executed whenever a specific reference type is encountered. The following
syntax is what you might use to register your own custom serialization strategy.
This example registers a custom serializer that is executed globally whenever a
DateTime object is found.

    Object::Serializer->serialization_strategy_for(
        DateTime => sub { pop->iso8601 }
    );

Additionally, you can register a serialization strategy to be used only when
invoked by a specific class. The following syntax is what you might use to
register a serialization strategy to be executed only for a specific class:

    Point->serialization_strategy_for(
        DateTime => sub { pop->iso8601 }
    );

# CAVEATS

Circular references are problematic and should be avoided, you can weaken or
otherwise handle them yourself then re-assemble them later as a means toward
getting around this.

# AUTHOR

Al Newkirk <anewkirk@ana.io>

# COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Al Newkirk.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
