NormalizableInterface.php

<?php

/*
 * This file is part of the Symfony package.
 *
 * (c) Fabien Potencier <fabien@symfony.com>
 *
 * For the full copyright and license information, please view the LICENSE
 * file that was distributed with this source code.
 */
namespace Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer;


/**
 * Defines the most basic interface a class must implement to be normalizable
 *
 * If a normalizer is registered for the class and it doesn't implement
 * the Normalizable interfaces, the normalizer will be used instead
 *
 * @author Jordi Boggiano <j.boggiano@seld.be>
 */
interface NormalizableInterface {

  /**
   * Normalizes the object into an array of scalars|arrays.
   *
   * It is important to understand that the normalize() call should normalize
   * recursively all child objects of the implementor.
   *
   * @param NormalizerInterface $normalizer The normalizer is given so that you
   *   can use it to normalize objects contained within this object.
   * @param string|null $format The format is optionally given to be able to normalize differently
   *   based on different output formats.
   * @return array|scalar
   */
  public function normalize(NormalizerInterface $normalizer, $format = null);

}