Ray does not dump binary strings

[sebj54]

Describe the bug

When you attempt to dump a binary string or anything containing one (like an array or an object), Ray does not dump anything. It just fails silently.

Versions

Ray version (you can see this in "About Ray"): 2.8.1

You can use composer show to get the version numbers of:

• spatie/ray package version: 1.41.2
• spatie/laravel-ray package version (if applicable): 1.37.1

PHP version: 8.2.17
Laravel version (if applicable): 11.18.1

To Reproduce

Add this in your code:

ray(hex2bin('ae0f3d'));

Expected behavior

Ray should display this (like the console when dump is used):

b"®\x0F="

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: MacOs
• Version: 14.6.1

[timvandijck]

@sebj54 a bit late to the party but I was just investigating this.

I am not too familiar with the subject so maybe I'm just confused.

Using the example Ray indeed silently "fails".
But if I run ray(json_encode(hex2bin('ae0f3d'))) it shows false in Ray. Which is a possible response from the hex2bin method: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.hex2bin.php

If I use the example from the PHP docs:

ray(hex2bin("6578616d706c65206865782064617461"));

I do get the proper response in Ray:

So I am not sure what kind of magic the dump method does to get a different result.

[sebj54]

But if I run ray(json_encode(hex2bin('ae0f3d'))) it shows false in Ray. Which is a possible response from the hex2bin method: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.hex2bin.php

Actually, I think json_encode is returning false here, not hex2bin.

I don't know how Ray works under the hood but maybe the whole problem is due to JSON encoding. Binary strings are not supported in JSON objects:

[timvandijck]

@sebj54 I think you are on to something with this. All data is send encoded as json over HTTP to the Ray app that runs a small node server to receive the data.

[sebj54]

Then I really don't know how you can deal with that issue then.

Maybe the least you could do is to show an error or a warning in Ray, like "the object you tried to dump could not be JSON encoded. It can save a lot of time to Ray users wondering why there is no output in Ray while they are debugging 😅

[D-nov]

Popping in to "bump" this because I got the same issue.