Groups

In addition to use the Symfony Serializer #[Groups] attribute, you can also use the #[MapTo] and #[MapFrom] attributes to define groups of properties that should be mapped.

class Source
{
    #[MapTo(target: 'array', groups: ['group1', 'group2'])]
    public $groupedProperty;
}

When doing so the property will be mapped only if the context contains at least one group defined in the groups argument.

Cumulative groups

When using both groups from the Symfony Serializer #[Groups] attribute and the groups argument from the #[MapTo] or #[MapFrom] attributes, the latter groups will override the former groups.

use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Attribute\Groups;

class Source
{
    #[Groups(['group1', 'group2'])]
    #[MapTo(target: 'array', groups: ['group3'])]
    public $groupedProperty;
}

In this case the property will be mapped only if the context contains the group3 group.

Disabling groups

Even if you don't put groups in your property some checks are done at runtime to be sure that there is no groups in the context when mapping this property.

For a large entity set those checks are useless and degrade performance for no reason, you can disable a check for a specific property by using the "disableGroupsCheck" field of thre attribute :

class Source
{
    #[MapTo(target: 'array', disableGroupsCheck: true)]
    public $property;
}

Those checks can also be disabled globally or per mapper by using the configuration.