PHP json_encode a debug_backtrace() with resource types

Question

Currently, I have a logger which logs errors together with a backtrace. The logger serializes the backtrace to JSON via json_encode().

Let's look at some hypothetical code...

<?php
    error_reporting(-1);                          // show all errors
    function test($b){
        echo json_encode(debug_backtrace());      // take a backtrace snapshot
    }
    $c = imagecreate(50,50);                      // create a resource...
    test($c);                                     // ...and pass to function
?>

If you run the code above, we will see something like:

Warning: json_encode() [function.json-encode]: type is unsupported, encoded as null in /code/ch6gVw on line 5 [{"file":"/code/ch6gVw","line":8,"function":"test","args":[null]}]

We can notice two things going on here:

1. The logger itself is causing a warning! Bad bad bad!
2. The logged data tells us we passed a null to the function?!?!

---

So, my proposed solution is something like:

foreach($trace as $i=>$v)
    if(is_resource($v))
        $trace[$i] = (string)$v.' ('.get_resource_type($v).')';

The result would look like Resource id #1 (gd)

---

This, however, may cause some grave issues.

1. We need to somehow track which arrays we looped through so as to avoid ending up in infinite loops with arrays referencing themselves ($GLOBALS tend to cause this mess).
2. We would also have to convert resources of object properties, but objects, unlike arrays, are not a copy of the original thing, hence changing the property changes the live object. On the other hand, how safe is it to clone() the object?
3. Won't such a loop severely slow down the server (backtraces tend to be large, no)?

Answer 1

I ended up with the following function:

function clean_trace($branch){
    if(is_object($branch)){
        // object
        $props = array();
        $branch = clone($branch); // doesn't clone cause some issues?
        foreach($props as $k=>$v)
            $branch->$k = clean_trace($v);
    }elseif(is_array($branch)){
        // array
        foreach($branch as $k=>$v)
            $branch[$k] = clean_trace($v);
    }elseif(is_resource($branch)){
        // resource
        $branch = (string)$branch.' ('.get_resource_type($branch).')';
    }elseif(is_string($branch)){
        // string (ensure it is UTF-8, see: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=47130)
        $branch = utf8_encode($branch);
    }
    // other (hopefully serializable) stuff
    return $branch;
}

You can see it in action here. However, I'm not convinced:

• It is quite slow (iterating over lots of data)
• It is quite memory intensive (data needs to be copied to not mess the original)
• It is not safe in case where arrays/objects reference themselves
  • Example: $a = array(); $a['ref'] = &$a; (PHP does this to some internal variables)
• I'm concerned that cloning objects may have some serious side-effects (consider the magic method __clone(), an invitation to wreck havoc).