gistfile1.txt

{
    "_id": "foo",
    "mapping": {
        "1->2->3": "tag1",
        "$woozles!!": "tag2"
    },
    "origin": {
      "name": "Walmart.com",
      "slug": "walmart"
    }
}

Mapping this to PHP objects works fine now without the mapping sub-document, and the API ends up being:

$f = new Foo;
$name = $foo->origin->name

But, if we apply the same hydration logic, it would attempt to create object properties like "1->2->3". In reality, I need to know that some sub-documents shouldn't be hyrdated into objects, but should be kept as hashes

<?php

class DataTraverser {
    protected $data = null;
    protected $currentKey = null;
    protected $keymap = array();
    public function __construct($data) {
        $this->data = $data;
        foreach ($this->data as $k => $v) {
            $cleankey = preg_filter('/[^A-Za-z0-9]+/', '', $k);
            if ($cleankey && $cleankey != $k) {
                $this->keymap[$cleankey] = $k;
            }
        }
    }
    public function __get($key) {
        if (isset($this->keymap[$key])) {
            $key = $this->keymap[$key];
        }
        if (is_array($this->data[$key])) {
            $this->data[$key] = new DataTraverser($this->data[$key]);
        }
        return $this->data[$key];
    }
}

class Foo
{

    protected $data;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->data = json_decode('{
            "_id": "foo",
            "mapping": {
                "1->2->3": "tag1",
                "$woozles!!": "tag2"
            },
            "origin": {
                "name": "Walmart.com",
                "slug": "walmart"
            }
            }
        ', true);

    }

    public function __get($key)
    {
        if (is_array($this->data[$key])) {
            $this->data[$key] = new DataTraverser($this->data[$key]);
        }
        return $this->data[$key];
    }
}

$foo = new Foo;
var_dump($foo);
var_dump($foo->mapping->woozles);