Empty Objects get serialized as "array()"

[wjaspers]

This is a problem for JSON serialization wherein a JSON schema is defined and validated against.

For example:

1. I have an object with JMS Serializer annotations on it (in my case, a Doctrine entity).
2. The Object has properties, but all which are annotated to be serialized are defaulted to "null".
3. My application's controller serializes the object mentioned above using the JMS Serializer.
4. My application's controller validates the response body against my schema.
5. The application invalidates the response because the schema expects an object, but an empty array is provided to the validator.

---

example JSON schema:

{
   "name": "thingy",
   "type": "object",
   "properties" : {
        "name" : {
             "type" : "string",
             "maxlength" : 255,
        }
   }
}

example object:

use JMS\Serializer\Annotation as Serializer;

class Thingy {
  /**
   * @Serializer\Accessor(getter="getName")
   * @Serializer\SerializedName(value="name")
   * @Serializer\Expose
   */
  private $name;

  public function getName() {
     return $this->name;
  }
}

example serialization:

$thingy = new Thingy();
$result = $serializer->serialize($thingy, 'json');
var_dump($result);

---

result (JSON):
[]

expected result (JSON):
{}

[schmittjoh]

Closing this in favor of the issue on serializer lib.