Prevent serialization of non-backed enums by innerfly · Pull Request #6796 · Codeception/Codeception

innerfly · 2024-09-18T09:17:00Z

Fixes an #6753, when json_encode fails to serialize non-backed enum.
Follow up #6762 (comment)

Arhell

@Naktibalda look when you have time, thanks

W0rma · 2025-12-11T08:39:21Z

@innerfly Can you try to add a test case?

innerfly · 2025-12-12T14:56:02Z

@W0rma Simple test case:

<?php

namespace Unit;

use Codeception\Attribute\DataProvider;
use Codeception\Example;
use PHPUnit\Framework\Assert as Assert;

enum ExampleEnum
{
    case FOO;
    case BAR;
}

class ExampleCest
{
    protected function EnumProvider(): array
    {
        return [
            ['expected' => ExampleEnum::FOO, 'result' => ExampleEnum::BAR],
            ['expected' => ExampleEnum::BAR, 'result' => ExampleEnum::BAR],
        ];
    }

    #[DataProvider('EnumProvider')]
    public function testEnum(Example $example)
    {
        Assert::assertSame($example['expected'], $example['result']);
    }
}

Result:

There was 1 error:
1) ExampleCest: Test enum | "Unit\\ExampleEnum","Unit\\ExampleEnum"
 Test  tests/unit/ExampleCest.php:testEnum
                                                                  
  [JsonException] Non-backed enums have no default serialization

burned42 · 2026-01-20T15:37:26Z

@innerfly I think what he meant was a test that can be added to the repo showing that this is fixed with your changes and ensures it won't break again by some future changes.

burned42 · 2026-01-20T15:43:50Z

src/Codeception/Test/Descriptor.php

-            $signature .= ':' . substr(sha1($encoded), 0, 7);
+        try {
+            if (method_exists($testCase, 'getMetadata') && $example = $testCase->getMetadata()->getCurrent('example')) {
+                $encoded = json_encode($example, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR | JSON_INVALID_UTF8_SUBSTITUTE);


This will avoid breaking the whole execution, however this might result in non-unique signatures being returned as the error will just get ignored. I don't know if this is an issue or not.

But I think we could improve this even further by avoiding an exception entirely. We could convert enums manually before passing the example to json_encode. Maybe something like this:

Suggested change

$encoded = json_encode($example, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR | JSON_INVALID_UTF8_SUBSTITUTE);

$example = self::normalizeForJsonEncoding($example);

$encoded = json_encode($example, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR | JSON_INVALID_UTF8_SUBSTITUTE);

// ...

}

private static function normalizeForJsonEncoding(mixed $value): mixed

{

return match (true) {

is_array($value) => array_map(self::normalizeForJsonEncoding(...), $value),

$value instanceof UnitEnum => $value->name,

default => $value,

};

}

@burned42 I have added manual enum convertions following your idea, and test cases to cover this

Just one minor nitpick, it's not necessary to manually convert backed enums as those can indeed be serialized to json and only the non-backed enums cause issues.

Unfortunately github tells me I don't have the permission to mark my discussions as resolved, but the change itself looks good to me now other than this small note 👍

The test setup looks a bit complicated, but I don't know if that can be simplified. The tests do seem to cover the changed code though :)

Idea of adding backed enums before unit enums was to process them before unit enums because techically every enum is UnitEnum (BackedEnum extends UnitEnum). Following
$value instanceof UnitEnum => $value->name,
would convert every enum. Ended up by adding advanced checking, this way it looks more obvious
$value instanceof UnitEnum && !($value instanceof BackedEnum) => $value->name,

burned42 · 2026-01-22T14:10:14Z

src/Codeception/Test/Descriptor.php

        };
    }
+
+      private static function normalizeForJsonEncoding(mixed $value): mixed


Indentation is a bit off here:

Suggested change

private static function normalizeForJsonEncoding(mixed $value): mixed

private static function normalizeForJsonEncoding(mixed $value): mixed

innerfly changed the title ~~Prevent serialization of non-backed enums #6753~~ Prevent serialization of non-backed enums Sep 18, 2024

Arhell reviewed Sep 19, 2024

View reviewed changes

burned42 reviewed Jan 20, 2026

View reviewed changes

innerfly force-pushed the 6753-fix-example-serialization-issue branch from 0fa872b to a1684b0 Compare January 21, 2026 09:44

Codeception#6753 Prevent serialization of non-backed enums

da50e50

innerfly force-pushed the 6753-fix-example-serialization-issue branch from a1684b0 to da50e50 Compare January 21, 2026 10:36

innerfly added 5 commits January 21, 2026 16:50

add normalization for json encoding

6adc287

enum serialization test

7fd1d1d

add string and array serialization

20363fb

add string and array serialization

3f8f2eb

prettify

98f1aaa

burned42 reviewed Jan 22, 2026

View reviewed changes

innerfly added 2 commits January 22, 2026 20:27

fix indendation

f009c82

enum processing optimization

cd9a288

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Prevent serialization of non-backed enums#6796

Prevent serialization of non-backed enums#6796
innerfly wants to merge 8 commits intoCodeception:mainfrom
innerfly:6753-fix-example-serialization-issue

innerfly commented Sep 18, 2024

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-                $encoded = json_encode($example, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR | JSON_INVALID_UTF8_SUBSTITUTE);
+            $example = self::normalizeForJsonEncoding($example);
+            $encoded = json_encode($example, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR | JSON_INVALID_UTF8_SUBSTITUTE);
+        // ...
+    }
+    private static function normalizeForJsonEncoding(mixed $value): mixed
+    {
+        return match (true) {
+            is_array($value) => array_map(self::normalizeForJsonEncoding(...), $value),
+            $value instanceof UnitEnum => $value->name,
+            default => $value,
+        };
+    }

	private static function normalizeForJsonEncoding(mixed $value): mixed
	private static function normalizeForJsonEncoding(mixed $value): mixed

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