This page collects a few small complete examples.

¶1. Build a DTO and serialise it to JSON

use GT\DataObject\DataObject;

$user = (new DataObject())
	->with("id", 105)
	->with("name", "Cody")
	->with("roles", ["author", "editor"]);

echo json_encode($user), PHP_EOL;

Output:

{"id":105,"name":"Cody","roles":["author","editor"]}

¶2. Start from decoded JSON

use GT\DataObject\DataObjectBuilder;

$json = <<<'JSON'
{
	"name": "Cody",
	"address": {
		"town": "Leeds"
	},
	"food": [
		"biscuits",
		"mushrooms"
	]
}
JSON;

$builder = new DataObjectBuilder();
$user = $builder->fromObject(json_decode($json));

echo $user->getString("name"), PHP_EOL;
echo $user->getObject("address")?->getString("town"), PHP_EOL;
echo $user->getArray("food")[0], PHP_EOL;

¶3. Remove private fields before passing data on

use GT\DataObject\DataObject;

$user = (new DataObject())
	->with("name", "Cody")
	->with("email", "cody@example.com")
	->with("creditCard", "4111 1111 1111 1111");

$shippingCopy = $user->without("creditCard");

$user still contains the original data. $shippingCopy is a separate immutable object without the sensitive key.

¶4. Cast each element of an array

use GT\DataObject\DataObject;

$scores = (new DataObject())
	->with("scores", ["1", "2", "3.14159"]);

$wholeNumbers = $scores->getArray("scores", "int");
print_r($wholeNumbers);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => 1
    [1] => 2
    [2] => 3
)

¶5. Build a custom subclass from an object

use GT\DataObject\DataObject;
use GT\DataObject\DataObjectBuilder;

class UserData extends DataObject {}

$source = (object)[
	"name" => "Cody",
	"profile" => (object)[
		"town" => "Leeds",
	],
];

$builder = new DataObjectBuilder();
$user = $builder->fromObject($source, UserData::class);

Both $user and $user->getObject("profile") will be instances of UserData.