Introduction

At the lowest level, Doctrine represents your database schema with a set of PHP classes. These classes define the schema and behavior of your model.

A basic model that represents a user in a web application might look something like this.

class User extends Doctrine_Record
{
    public function setTableDefinition()
    {
        $this->hasColumn('username', 'string', 255);
        $this->hasColumn('password', 'string', 255);
    }

    public function setUp()
    {
        $this->actAs('Timestampable');
    }
}

We aren't actually going to use the above class definition, it is only meant to be an example. We will generate our first class definition from an existing database table later in this chapter.

Each Doctrine_Record child class can have a setTableDefinition() and setUp() method. The setTableDefinition() method is for defining columns, indexes and other information about the schema of tables. The setUp() method is for attaching behaviors and defining relationships between Doctrine_Record child classes. In the above example we are enabling the Timestampable behavior which adds some automagic functionality. You will learn more about what all can be used in these functions in the Defining Models chapter.