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Working with Models


Define Test Schema

Remember to delete any existing schema information and models from previous chapters.

rm schema.yml
touch schema.yml
rm -rf models/*

For the next several examples we will use the following schema:

// models/User.php
class User extends Doctrine_Record
{
    public function setTableDefinition()
    {
        $this->hasColumn('username', 'string', 255, array(
            'type' => 'string',
            'length' => '255'
        ));
        $this->hasColumn('password', 'string', 255, array(
            'type' => 'string',
            'length' => '255'
        ));
    }

    public function setUp()
    {
        $this->hasMany('Group as Groups', array(
            'refClass' => 'UserGroup',
            'local' => 'user_id',
            'foreign' => 'group_id'
        ));
        $this->hasOne('Email', array(
            'local' => 'id',
            'foreign' => 'user_id'
        ));
        $this->hasMany('Phonenumber as Phonenumbers', array(
            'local' => 'id',
            'foreign' => 'user_id'
        ));
    }
}

// models/Email.php
class Email extends Doctrine_Record
{
    public function setTableDefinition()
    {
        $this->hasColumn('user_id', 'integer', null, array(
            'type' => 'integer'
        ));
        $this->hasColumn('address', 'string', 255, array(
            'type' => 'string',
            'length' => '255'
        ));
    }

    public function setUp()
    {
        $this->hasOne('User', array(
            'local' => 'user_id',
            'foreign' => 'id'
        ));
    }
}
// models/Phonenumber.php
class Phonenumber extends Doctrine_Record
{
    public function setTableDefinition()
    {
        $this->hasColumn('user_id', 'integer', null, array(
            'type' => 'integer'
        ));
        $this->hasColumn('phonenumber', 'string', 255, array(
            'type' => 'string',
            'length' => '255'
        ));
        $this->hasColumn('primary_num', 'boolean');
    }

    public function setUp()
    {
        $this->hasOne('User', array(
            'local' => 'user_id',
            'foreign' => 'id'
        ));
    }
}
// models/Group.php
class Group extends Doctrine_Record
{
    public function setTableDefinition()
    {
        $this->setTableName('groups');
        $this->hasColumn('name', 'string', 255, array(
            'type' => 'string',
            'length' => '255'
        ));
    }

    public function setUp()
    {
        $this->hasMany('User as Users', array(
            'refClass' => 'UserGroup',
            'local' => 'group_id',
            'foreign' => 'user_id'
        ));
    }
}
// models/UserGroup.php
class UserGroup extends Doctrine_Record
{
    public function setTableDefinition()
    {
        $this->hasColumn('user_id', 'integer', null, array(
            'type' => 'integer',
            'primary' => true
        ));
        $this->hasColumn('group_id', 'integer', null, array(
            'type' => 'integer',
            'primary' => true
        ));
    }
}

Here is the same example in YAML format. You can read more about YAML in the YAML Schema Files chapter:

1# schema.yml User: columns: username: string(255) password: string(255) relations: Groups: class: Group local: user_id foreign: group_id refClass: UserGroup foreignAlias: Users Email: columns: user_id: integer address: string(255) relations: User: foreignType: one Phonenumber: columns: user_id: integer phonenumber: string(255) primary_num: boolean relations: User: foreignAlias: Phonenumbers Group: tableName: groups columns: name: string(255) UserGroup: columns: user_id: type: integer primary: true group_id: type: integer primary: true
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Now that you have your schema defined you can instantiate the database by simply running the generate.php script we so conveniently created in the previous chapter.

$ php generate.php

Dealing with Relations


Creating Related Records

Accessing related records in Doctrine is easy: you can use exactly the same getters and setters as for the record properties.

You can use any of the three ways above, however the last one is the recommended one for array portability purposes.

// test.php
$ user = new User();
$ user['username'] = 'jwage';
$ user['password'] = 'changeme';

$ email = $user->Email;

$ email = $user->get('Email');

$ email = $user['Email'];

When accessing a one-to-one related record that doesn't exist, Doctrine automatically creates the object. That is why the above code is possible.

$ user->Email->address = '[email protected]';
$ user->save();

When accessing one-to-many related records, Doctrine creates a Doctrine_Collection for the related component. Lets say we have users and phonenumbers and their relation is one-to-many. You can add phonenumbers easily as shown above:

$user->Phonenumbers[]->phonenumber = '123 123';
$user->Phonenumbers[]->phonenumber = '456 123';
$user->Phonenumbers[]->phonenumber = '123 777';

Now we can easily save the user and the associated phonenumbers:

$user->save();

Another way to easily create a link between two related components is by using Doctrine_Record::link. It often happens that you have two existing records that you would like to relate (or link) to one another. In this case, if there is a relation defined between the involved record classes, you only need the identifiers of the related record(s):

Lets create a few new Phonenumber objects and keep track of the new phone number identifiers:

// test.php
$phoneIds = array();

$phone1 = new Phonenumber(); $phone1['phonenumber'] = '555 202 7890';
$phone1->save();

$phoneIds[] = $phone1['id'];

$phone2 = new Phonenumber(); $phone2['phonenumber'] = '555 100 7890';
$phone2->save();

$phoneIds[] = $phone2['id'];

Let's link the phone numbers to the user, since the relation to Phonenumbers exists for the User record:

$user = new User();
$user['username'] = 'jwage';
$user['password'] = 'changeme';
$user->save();

$user->link('Phonenumbers', $phoneIds);

If a relation to the User record class is defined for the Phonenumber record class, you may even do this:

First create a user to work with:

$user = new User();
$user['username'] = 'jwage';
$user['password'] = 'changeme';
$user->save();

Now create a new Phonenumber instance:

$phone1 = new Phonenumber();
$phone1['phonenumber'] = '555 202 7890';
$phone1->save();

Now we can link the User to our Phonenumber:

$phone1->link('User', array($user['id']));

We can create another phone number:

$phone2 = new Phonenumber();
$phone2['phonenumber'] = '555 100 7890';
$phone2->save();

Let's link this Phonenumber to our User too:

$phone2->link('User', array($user['id']));

Retrieving Related Records

You can retrieve related records by the very same Doctrine_Record methods as in the previous subchapter. Please note that whenever you access a related component that isn't already loaded Doctrine uses one SQL SELECT statement for the fetching, hence the following example executes three SQL SELECTs.

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// test.php
$ user = Doctrine_Core::getTable('User')->find(1);

echo $user->Email['address'];

echo $user->Phonenumbers[0]->phonenumber;

Much more efficient way of doing this is using DQL. The following example uses only one SQL query for the retrieval of related components.

// test.php
$ q = Doctrine_Query::create()
        ->from('User u')
        ->leftJoin('u.Email e')
        ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p')
        ->where('u.id = ?', 1);

$ user = $q->fetchOne();

echo $user->Email['address'];

echo $user->Phonenumbers[0]['phonenumber'];

Updating Related Records

You can update the related records by calling save for each related object / collection individually or by calling save on the object that owns the other objects. You can also call Doctrine_Connection::flush which saves all pending objects.

// test.php
$ user->Email['address'] = '[email protected]';

$ user->Phonenumbers[0]['phonenumber'] = '123123';

$ user->save();

In the above example calling $user->save saves the email and phonenumber.


Clearing Related Records

You can clear a related records references from an object. This does not change the fact that these objects are related and won't change it in the database if you save. It just simply clears the reference in PHP of one object to another.

You can clear all references by doing the following:

// test.php
$user->clearRelated();

Or you can clear a specific relationship:

$user->clearRelated('Email');

This is useful if you were to do something like the following:

if ($user->Email->exists()) {
    // User has e-mail
} else {
    // User does not have a e-mail
}

$user->clearRelated('Email');

Because Doctrine will automatically create a new Email object if the user does not have one, we need to clear that reference so that if we were to call $user->save` it wouldn't save a blank Email` record for the User``.

We can simplify the above scenario even further by using the relatedExists method. This is so that you can do the above check with less code and not have to worry about clearing the unnecessary reference afterwards.

if ($user->relatedExists('Email')) {
    // User has e-mail
} else {
    //  User does not have a e-mail
}

Deleting Related Records

You can delete related records individually be calling delete on a record or on a collection.

Here you can delete an individual related record:

// test.php
$user->Email->delete();

You can delete an individual record from within a collection of records:

$user->Phonenumbers[3]->delete();

You could delete the entire collection if you wanted:

$user->Phonenumbers->delete();

Or can just delete the entire user and all related objects:

$user->delete();

Usually in a typical web application the primary keys of the related objects that are to be deleted come from a form. In this case the most efficient way of deleting the related records is using DQL DELETE statement. Lets say we have once again Users and Phonenumbers with their relation being one-to-many. Deleting the given Phonenumbers for given user id can be achieved as follows:

$q = Doctrine_Query::create()
        ->delete('Phonenumber')
        ->addWhere('user_id = ?', 5)
        ->whereIn('id', array(1, 2, 3));

$numDeleted = $q->execute();

Sometimes you may not want to delete the Phonenumber records but to simply unlink the relations by setting the foreign key fields to null. This can of course be achieved with DQL but perhaps to most elegant way of doing this is by using Doctrine_Record::unlink.

Please note that the unlink method is very smart. It not only sets the foreign fields for related Phonenumbers to null but it also removes all given Phonenumber references from the User object.

Lets say we have a User who has three Phonenumbers (with identifiers 1, 2 and 3). Now unlinking the Phonenumbers 1 and 3 can be achieved as easily as:

$user->unlink('Phonenumbers', array(1, 3));

echo $user->Phonenumbers->count(); // 1

Working with Related Records


Testing the Existence of a Relation

The below example would return false because the relationship has not been instantiated yet:

// test.php
$user = new User();
if (isset($user->Email)) {
    // ...
}

Now the next example will return true because we instantiated the Email relationship:

// test.php
$obj->Email = new Email();
if(isset($obj->Email)) {
    // ...
}

Many-to-Many Relations

Doctrine requires that Many-to-Many relationships be bi-directional. For example: both User must have many Groups and Group must have many User.


Creating a New Link

Lets say we have two classes User and Group which are linked through a GroupUser association class. When working with transient (new) records the fastest way for adding a User and couple of Group objects for it is:

// test.php
$user = new User();
$user->username = 'Some User';
$user->Groups[0]->username = 'Some Group';
$user->Groups[1]->username = 'Some Other Group';
$user->save();

However in real world scenarios you often already have existing groups, where you want to add a given user. The most efficient way of doing this is:

$groupUser = new GroupUser();
$groupUser->user_id = $userId;
$groupUser->group_id = $groupId;
$groupUser->save();

Deleting a Link

The right way to delete links between many-to-many associated records is by using the DQL DELETE statement. Convenient and recommended way of using DQL DELETE is through the Query API.

// test.php
$ q = Doctrine_Query::create()
        ->delete('UserGroup')
        ->addWhere('user_id = ?', 5)
        ->whereIn('group_id', array(1, 2));

$ deleted = $q->execute();

Another way to unlink the relationships between related objects is through the Doctrine_Record::unlink method. However, you should avoid using this method unless you already have the parent model, since it involves querying the database first.

$ user = Doctrine_Core::getTable('User')->find(5);
$ user->unlink('Group', array(1, 2));
$ user->save();

You can also unlink ALL relationships to Group by omitting the second argument:

$user->unlink('Group');

While the obvious and convenient way of deleting a link between User and Group would be the following, you still should NOT do this:

$user = Doctrine_Core::getTable('User')->find(5);
$user->GroupUser->remove(0)->remove(1);
$user->save();

This is due to a fact that the call to $user->GroupUser loads all Group links for given User. This can be time-consuming task if the User belongs to many Groups. Even if the user belongs to few groups this will still execute an unnecessary SELECT statement.


Fetching Objects

Normally when you fetch data from database the following phases are executed:

  • Sending the query to database
  • Retrieve the returned data from the database

In terms of object fetching we call these two phases the 'fetching' phase. Doctrine also has another phase called hydration phase. The hydration phase takes place whenever you are fetching structured arrays / objects. Unless explicitly specified everything in Doctrine gets hydrated.

Lets consider we have Users and Phonenumbers with their relation being one-to-many. Now consider the following plain sql query:

// test.php
$sql = 'SELECT
            u.id, u.username, p.phonenumber
        FROM user u
           LEFT JOIN phonenumber p
               ON u.id = p.user_id';

$results = $conn->getDbh()->fetchAll($sql);

If you are familiar with these kind of one-to-many joins it may be familiar to you how the basic result set is constructed. Whenever the user has more than one phonenumbers there will be duplicated data in the result set. The result set might look something like:

index u.id u.username p.phonenumber
0 1 Jack Daniels 123 123
1 1 Jack Daniels 456 456
2 2 John Beer 111 111
3 3 John Smith 222 222
4 3 John Smith 333 333
5 3 John Smith 444 444

Here Jack Daniels has two Phonenumbers, John Beer has one whereas John Smith has three. You may notice how clumsy this result set is. Its hard to iterate over it as you would need some duplicate data checking logic here and there.

Doctrine hydration removes all duplicated data. It also performs many other things such as:

  • Custom indexing of result set elements
  • Value casting and preparation
  • Value assignment listening
  • Makes multi-dimensional array out of the two-dimensional result set array, the number of dimensions is equal to the number of nested joins

Now consider the DQL equivalent of the SQL query we used:

$q = Doctrine_Query::create()
      ->select('u.id, u.username, p.phonenumber')
      ->from('User u')
      ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p');

$results = $q->execute(array(), Doctrine_Core::HYDRATE_ARRAY);

print_r($results);

The structure of this hydrated array would look like

1$ php test.php Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 1 [username] => [Phonenumbers] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 1 [phonenumber] => 123 123 ) [1] => Array ( [id] => 2 [phonenumber] => 456 123 ) [2] => Array ( [id] => 3 [phonenumber] => 123 777 ) ) ) )
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This structure also applies to the hydration of objects(records) which is the default hydration mode of Doctrine. The only differences are that the individual elements are represented as Doctrine_Record objects and the arrays converted into Doctrine_Collection objects. Whether dealing with arrays or objects you can:

  • Iterate over the results using foreach
  • Access individual elements using array access brackets
  • Get the number of elements using count() function
  • Check if given element exists using isset()
  • Unset given element using unset()

You should always use array hydration when you only need to data for access-only purposes, whereas you should use the record hydration when you need to change the fetched data.

The constant O(n) performance of the hydration algorithm is ensured by a smart identifier caching solution.

Doctrine uses an identity map internally to make sure that multiple objects for one record in a database don't ever exist. If you fetch an object and modify some of its properties, then re-fetch that same object later, the modified properties will be overwritten by default. You can change this behavior by changing the ATTR_HYDRATE_OVERWRITE attribute to false.


Sample Queries

  • Count number of records for a relationship:

    // test.php
    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->select('u.*, COUNT(DISTINCT p.id) AS num_phonenumbers')
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p')
            ->groupBy('u.id');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
    echo $users[0]['Phonenumbers'][0]['num_phonenumbers'];
    
  • Retrieve Users and the Groups they belong to:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Groups g');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
    foreach ($users[0]['Groups'] as $group) {
        echo $group['name'];
    }
    
  • Simple WHERE with one parameter value:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
        ->from('User u')
        ->where('u.username = ?', 'jwage');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Multiple WHERE with multiple parameters values:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p')
            ->where('u.username = ? AND p.id = ?', array(1, 1));
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    

You can also optionally use the andWhere method to add to the existing where parts.

$q = Doctrine_Query::create()
        ->from('User u')
        ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p')
        ->where('u.username = ?', 1)
        ->andWhere('p.id = ?', 1);

$users = $q->fetchArray();
  • Using whereIn convenience method:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->whereIn('u.id', array(1, 2, 3));
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • The following is the same as above example:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->where('u.id IN (1, 2, 3)');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Using DBMS function in your WHERE:

    $userEncryptedKey = 'a157a558ac00449c92294c7fab684ae0';
    
    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->where("MD5(CONCAT(u.username, 'secret_key')) = ?", $userEncryptedKey);
    
    $user = $q->fetchOne();
    
    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->where('LOWER(u.username) = LOWER(?)', 'jwage');
    
    $user = $q->fetchOne();
    
  • Limiting result sets using aggregate functions. Limit to users with more than one phonenumber:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->select('u.*, COUNT(DISTINCT p.id) AS num_phonenumbers')
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p')
            ->having('num_phonenumbers > 1')
            ->groupBy('u.id');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Join only primary phonenumbers using WITH:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p WITH p.primary_num = ?', true);
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Selecting certain columns for optimization:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->select('u.username, p.phone')
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Using a wildcard to select all User columns but only one Phonenumber column:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->select('u.*, p.phonenumber')
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Phonenumbers p');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Perform DQL delete with simple WHERE:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->delete('Phonenumber')
            ->addWhere('user_id = 5');
    
    $deleted = $q->execute();
    
  • Perform simple DQL update for a column:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->update('User u')
            ->set('u.is_active', '?', true)
            ->where('u.id = ?', 1);
    
    $updated = $q->execute();
    
  • Perform DQL update with DBMS function. Make all usernames lowercase:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->update('User u')
            ->set('u.username', 'LOWER(u.username)');
    
    $updated = $q->execute();
    
  • Using mysql LIKE to search for records:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->where('u.username LIKE ?', '%jwage%');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Use the INDEXBY keyword to hydrate the data where the key of record entry is the name of the column you assign:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u INDEXBY u.username');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    

    Now we can print the user with the username of jwage:

    print_r($users['jwage']);
    
  • Using positional parameters:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->where('u.username = ?', array('Arnold'));
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Using named parameters:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->where('u.username = :username', array(':username' => 'Arnold'));
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Using subqueries in your WHERE. Find users not in group named Group 2:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
        ->from('User u')
        ->where('u.id NOT IN (
                    SELECT u.id FROM User u2 INNER JOIN u2.Groups g WHERE g.name = ?
                )', 'Group 2');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    

You can accomplish this without using subqueries. The two examples below would have the same result as the example above.

  • Use INNER JOIN to retrieve users who have groups, excluding the group named Group 2:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->innerJoin('u.Groups g WITH g.name != ?', 'Group 2');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • Use WHERE condition to retrieve users who have groups, excluding the group named Group 2:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Groups g')
            ->where('g.name != ?', 'Group 2');
    
    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    

Doctrine has many different ways you can execute queries and retrieve the data. Below are examples of all the different ways you can execute a query:

  • First lets create a sample query to test with:

    $q = Doctrine_Query::create() ->from('User u');
    
  • You can use array hydration with the fetchArray method:

    $users = $q->fetchArray();
    
  • You can also use array hydration by specifying the hydration method to the second argument of the execute method:

    $users = $q->execute(array(), Doctrine_Core::HYDRATE_ARRAY)
    
  • You can also specify the hydration method by using the setHydrationMethod method:

    $users = $q->setHydrationMode(Doctrine_Core::HYDRATE_ARRAY)->execute(); // So is this
    

Custom accessors and mutators will not work when hydrating data as anything except records. When you hydrate as an array it is only a static array of data and is not object oriented. If you need to add custom values to your hydrated arrays you can use the some of the events such as preHydrate and postHydrate

  • Sometimes you may want to totally bypass hydration and return the raw data that PDO returns:

    $users = $q->execute(array(), Doctrine_Core::HYDRATE_NONE);
    

More can be read about skipping hydration in the improving performance chapter.

  • If you want to just fetch one record from the query:

    $user = $q->fetchOne();
    
    // Fetch all and get the first from collection
    $user = $q->execute()->getFirst();
    

Field Lazy Loading

Whenever you fetch an object that has not all of its fields loaded from database then the state of this object is called proxy. Proxy objects can load the unloaded fields lazily.

In the following example we fetch all the Users with the username field loaded directly. Then we lazy load the password field:

// test.php
$q = Doctrine_Query::create()
        ->select('u.username')
        ->from('User u')
        ->where('u.id = ?', 1);
$user = $q->fetchOne();

The following lazy-loads the password field and executes one additional database query to retrieve the value:

$user->password;

Doctrine does the proxy evaluation based on loaded field count. It does not evaluate which fields are loaded on field-by-field basis. The reason for this is simple: performance. Field lazy-loading is very rarely needed in PHP world, hence introducing some kind of variable to check which fields are loaded would introduce unnecessary overhead to basic fetching.


Arrays and Objects

Doctrine_Collection provide methods to facilitate working with arrays: fromArray and synchronizeWithArray.


To Array

The toArray method returns an array representation of your records or collections. It also accesses the relationships the objects may have. If you need to print a record for debugging purposes you can get an array representation of the object and print that.

$ print_r($user->toArray());

If you do not want to include the relationships in the array then you need to pass the $deep argument with a value of false:

print_r($user->toArray(false));

From Array

If you have an array of values you want to use to fill a record or even a collection, the fromArray method simplifies this common task.

$ data = array(
    'name'   => 'John',
    'age'    => '25',
    'Emails' => array(
        array('address' => '[email protected]'),
        array('address' => '[email protected]')
    )
);

$ user = new User();
$ user->fromArray($data);
$ user->save();

Synchronize With Array

synchronizeWithArray allows you to... well, synchronize a record with an array. So if have an array representation of your model and modify a field, modify a relationship field or even delete or create a relationship, this changes will be applied to the record.

$ q = Doctrine_Query::create()
        ->select('u.*, g.*')
        ->from('User u')
        ->leftJoin('u.Groups g')
        ->where('id = ?', 1);

$ user = $q->fetchOne();

Now convert it to an array and modify some of the properties:

$arrayUser = $user->toArray(true);

$arrayUser['username'] = 'New name';
$arrayUser['Group'][0]['name'] = 'Renamed Group';
$arrayUser['Group'][] = array('name' => 'New Group');

Now use the same query to retrieve the record and synchronize the record with the $arrayUser variable:

$user = Doctrine_Query::create()
            ->select('u.*, g.*')
            ->from('User u')
            ->leftJoin('u.Groups g')
            ->where('id = ?', 1)
            ->fetchOne();

$user->synchronizeWithArray($arrayUser);
$user->save();

Overriding the Constructor

Sometimes you want to do some operations at the creation time of your objects. Doctrine doesn't allow you to override the Doctrine_Record::__construct method but provides an alternative:

class User extends Doctrine_Record
{
    public function construct()
    {
        $this->username = 'Test Name';
        $this->doSomething();
    }

    public function doSomething()
    {
        // ...
    }

    // ...
}

The only drawback is that it doesn't provide a way to pass parameters to the constructor.


Conclusion

By now we should know absolutely everything there is to know about models. We know how to create them, load them and most importantly we know how to use them and work with columns and relationships. Now we are ready to move on to learn about how to use the DQL: Doctrine Query Language.