at the end of the day, it was inevitable

behat/Common/Util/Processor/DataProcessor.php

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+<?php
+
+namespace Common\Util\Processor;
+
+use Common\Util\Processor\ExpressionLanguage\TestExpressionLanguage;
+use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerInterface;
+use Symfony\Component\ExpressionLanguage\ExpressionLanguage;
+
+/**
+ * Class DataProcessor
+ * Process data before sending to server.
+ *
+ * @package Common\Util\Processor
+ */
+class DataProcessor
+{
+
+    /**
+     * @var ExpressionLanguage
+     */
+    private $language;
+
+    /**
+     * DataProcessor constructor.
+     *
+     * @param ContainerInterface $container A ContainerInterface instance.
+     */
+    public function __construct(ContainerInterface $container)
+    {
+        $this->language = new TestExpressionLanguage($container);
+        $this->registerFunctions();
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * @param mixed $data Process data send to server and replace patterns.
+     *
+     * @return mixed
+     */
+    public function process($data)
+    {
+        if (is_array($data)) {
+            // Recursively process arrays.
+            return array_map(function ($data) {
+                return $this->process($data);
+            }, $data);
+        } elseif (is_string($data)) {
+            // Process string data.
+            $replacer = function ($param) {
+                // Sanitize params.
+                $param = str_replace('\\"', '\'', trim(current($param), '#'));
+
+                return $this->language->evaluate($param);
+            };
+
+            return preg_replace_callback("/#.+?#/", $replacer, $data);
+        }
+
+        // Not change other variable types.
+        return $data;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * @param mixed $arguments Arguments specified by expression language.
+     * @param mixed $time      Pass to DateTime constructor.
+     *
+     * @return \DateTime
+     *
+     * @SuppressWarnings(PHPMD.UnusedFormalParameter)
+     */
+    public function createDate($arguments, $time = 'now')
+    {
+        return new \DateTime($time);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Register custom expression language functions.
+     *
+     * @return void
+     */
+    private function registerFunctions()
+    {
+        $dummy = function () {
+            // do nothing.
+        };
+
+        $this->language->register('date', $dummy, [ $this, 'createDate' ]);
+    }
+}