Serialization

It would be great if you could json_encode the dereferenced JSON and get back the object with all of the referenced JSON inlined. Unfortunately there might be circular references so that isn’t always possible.

When you json_encode a dereferenced JSON document the default serializer transforms all references into the original { "$ref": "#/some/reference" } format instead of attempting to inline them

Inlining References

If you know your document does not have any circular references you can inline the referenced JSON.

The InlineReferenceSerializer will attempt to inline references and throw an exception if a direct circular reference is found. An indirect circular reference may still exist, in which case json_encode will fail and json_last_error will return JSON_ERROR_RECURSION.

$dereferencer = new Dereferencer();
$dereferencer->setReferenceSerializer(new InlineReferenceSerializer());

$schema = json_encode($dereferencer->dereference('file:///app/schemas/schema.json'));

Custom Serializers

You can use your own serializer by implementing the ReferenceSerializerInterface.