4 * This file is part of the Symfony package.
6 * (c) Fabien Potencier <fabien@symfony.com>
8 * For the full copyright and license information, please view the LICENSE
9 * file that was distributed with this source code.
12 namespace Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer;
15 * Defines the most basic interface a class must implement to be normalizable.
17 * If a normalizer is registered for the class and it doesn't implement
18 * the Normalizable interfaces, the normalizer will be used instead.
20 * @author Jordi Boggiano <j.boggiano@seld.be>
22 interface NormalizableInterface
25 * Normalizes the object into an array of scalars|arrays.
27 * It is important to understand that the normalize() call should normalize
28 * recursively all child objects of the implementor.
30 * @param NormalizerInterface $normalizer The normalizer is given so that you
31 * can use it to normalize objects contained within this object.
32 * @param string|null $format The format is optionally given to be able to normalize differently
33 * based on different output formats.
34 * @param array $context Options for normalizing this object
36 * @return array|scalar
38 public function normalize(NormalizerInterface $normalizer, $format = null, array $context = array());