Introduction

Data Helpers is a powerful, framework-agnostic PHP library for accessing, transforming, and mapping complex nested data structures with ease. It provides dot notation access, wildcard support, data mapping with templates, caching, and 40+ built-in filters.

What is Data Helpers?

Data Helpers is a comprehensive toolkit for working with data in PHP applications. It provides five main components:

• DataAccessor - Read nested data with dot notation and wildcards
• DataMutator - Modify nested data structures safely
• DataMapper - Transform data structures with templates and pipelines
• DataFilter - Query and filter data with SQL-like API
• SimpleDTO - Immutable Data Transfer Objects with validation and casting

Quick Example

// From this messy API response...
$apiResponse = [
    'data' => [
        'departments' => [
            ['users' => [['email' => 'alice@example.com'], ['email' => 'bob@example.com']]],
            ['users' => [['email' => 'charlie@example.com']]],
        ],
    ],
];

// ...to this clean result in one line
$accessor = new DataAccessor($apiResponse);
$emails = $accessor->get('data.departments.*.users.*.email');
// Result: ['alice@example.com', 'bob@example.com', 'charlie@example.com']

Why Use Data Helpers?

Stop Writing Nested Loops

Without Data Helpers, you need to write verbose code with multiple loops and null checks:

// Without Data Helpers
$emails = [];
foreach ($data['departments'] ?? [] as $dept) {
    foreach ($dept['users'] ?? [] as $user) {
        if (isset($user['email'])) {
            $emails[] = $user['email'];
        }
    }
}

// With Data Helpers
$emails = $accessor->get('departments.*.users.*.email');

Transform Data Structures with Ease

Map between different data formats, APIs, or database schemas without writing repetitive transformation code:

$mapper = new DataMapper();
$result = $mapper->map($source, [
    'user_name' => '{{ profile.name }}',
    'user_email' => '{{ profile.contact.email }}',
    'total_orders' => '{{ orders.*.amount | sum }}',
]);

Type-Safe and Well-Tested

• PHPStan Level 9 compliant
• 2900+ tests with comprehensive coverage
• Works reliably with arrays, objects, Collections, Models, JSON, and XML

Framework-Agnostic with Smart Detection

Use it anywhere - Laravel, Symfony, Doctrine, or plain PHP. Framework support is automatically detected at runtime:

• Laravel 9+ - Collections, Eloquent Models
• Symfony 6+ - Collections, Entities
• Doctrine 2+ - Collections, Entities
• Plain PHP - Works out of the box

Blazing Fast Performance

DataMapper is significantly faster than traditional serializers for DTO mapping:

• Up to 3.7x faster than Symfony Serializer
• Optimized for nested data structures
• Zero reflection overhead for template-based mapping
• See Performance Benchmarks for detailed comparison

Key Features

DataAccessor

• Dot notation path access
• Wildcard support for nested arrays
• Type-safe getters
• Collections support (Laravel/Doctrine)
• JSON and XML support

DataMutator

• Safe nested value setting
• Merge operations
• Unset operations
• Wildcard mutations

DataMapper

• Template-based mapping
• Pipeline filters (40+ built-in)
• Reverse mapping
• Query builder
• GROUP BY and aggregations
• Custom operators

DataFilter

• SQL-like query API
• WHERE, ORDER BY, LIMIT, OFFSET
• Custom operators
• Chainable methods

SimpleDTO

• Immutable DTOs
• 20+ built-in casts
• Validation system (22+ attributes)
• Property mapping
• Conditional properties (18 attributes)
• Lazy properties
• Computed properties
• Collections support
• TypeScript generation
• Framework integration

Requirements

• PHP 8.2 or higher
• No required dependencies
• Optional framework integrations:
  • Laravel 9+
  • Symfony 6+
  • Doctrine 2+

Installation

Install via Composer:

composer require event4u/data-helpers

See Installation for detailed setup instructions.

Next Steps

• Installation - Install and configure Data Helpers
• Quick Start - Get started in 5 minutes
• Core Concepts - Learn the fundamentals
• Examples - Browse 90+ code examples

Comparison with Similar Libraries

Data Helpers offers several advantages over comparable projects:

• Framework-agnostic - Works with Laravel, Symfony, or plain PHP
• Zero dependencies - No required dependencies, optional framework integrations
• Comprehensive - 5 main components covering all data manipulation needs
• Well-tested - 2900+ tests with PHPStan Level 9 compliance
• High performance - Up to 3.7x faster than traditional serializers
• Rich feature set - 40+ filters, 20+ casts, 22+ validation attributes, 18 conditional attributes

See Performance Comparison for detailed benchmarks.

Support

• GitHub Issues - Report bugs or request features
• GitHub Discussions - Ask questions and share ideas
• Examples - Browse 90+ code examples
• API Reference - Complete API documentation

License

Data Helpers is open-source software licensed under the MIT license.