gregorj / to-string

v1.1.0 2026-09-03 16:25 UTC

Requires

• php: ^8.1

Requires (Dev)

• phpstan/phpstan: ^2.2.3
• phpunit/phpunit: ^10.5
• squizlabs/php_codesniffer: ^4.0

MIT

• Gregor

Published on Packagist.org on 2026-09-03 16:27 UTC

README

This is a simple PHP library for turning values into readable strings. Its main purpose is to make strings and byte data printable by escaping non-printable characters instead of returning raw control bytes. This means, binary data is supported.

The library currently provides helpers for:

• booleans
• bytes
• strings
• arrays
• generic mixed values

Installation

composer require gregorj/to-string

Usage

<?php

use GregorJ\ToString\ToString;

echo ToString::fromAny(true);
// true

echo ToString::fromAny("hello\nworld");
// hello\nworld

echo ToString::fromAny(['name' => 'Hello', 'value' => 2.7, 'nothing' => null]);
// [name: "Hello", value: 2.7, nothing: null]

echo ToString::fromAny(new stdClass());
// stdClass

Limitations

• Array output is currently designed for human readability, not for parsing back into PHP.
• Recursive/self-referencing arrays are currently not supported.

Development

All development commands (install, test, lint, analyze, beautify, sniff, audit, validate) run via Docker through the Makefile, so no local PHP installation is needed. Run make help to list all targets.

Most local targets require PHP_VERSION, for example:

make install PHP_VERSION=8.1