using doctrine with codeigniter

Question

Hi all,

I am planning to use doctrine to write a module of my app which is built with codeigniter.

I have a very basic question : lets say I have a table called "user", with doctrine generate-models from db, 3 classes are generated BaseUser.php, User.php and UserTable.php. Now as I saw in the examples they use User class straigtaway. Should I be doing this ? I need additional business functionality for the user objects. So should I create a codeigniter model user_model and then use User class inside it (aggregation) or somehow extend user class ( i dont know how this will be done as user_model extends model)

Am little confused on this one and cannot locate any appropriate literature for the same. Any help would be appreciated.

thanks in advance,

Answer 1

Have you looked at the entry for this on the CodeIgniter Wiki?

http://codeigniter.com/wiki/Using_Doctrine_with_Code_Igniter/

It seems to cover the exact thing you are talking about.

Answer 2

For anyone who is interested - I’ve posted up a project starter on my blog - a dev ready incorporation of the following technologies:

• ExtJS : client side JS library,
• CodeIgniter : presentation + domain tier,
• Doctrine : ORM data layer framework

Some features of this project starter are: - CodeIgniter Models have been replaced with Doctrine Records - Doctrine is loaded into CI as a plugin - RoR type before and after filters…. - Doctrine transactions automatically wrapped around every action at execution time (ATOMIC db updates)

Basic Role based security (I think Redux may be in there as well?) Simply extract, hook up the database.php config file and viola…. You can start coding your layouts, views and models. Probably a few things to iron out - but enjoy!

Hope it helps

GET IT AT: http://thecodeabode.blogspot.com

Answer 3

Check out this info on Doctrine_Table class.

To your 3 generated files:
BaseXXX.php:
Holds the definition of your models so that Doctrine is able to handle the operations on the database. This class tells the ORM what colums are available, their types, advaned functions (like Timestampable,...) and more. You should not put your own data into this file since it will be over-written when re-creating the models from the database.

XXX.php:
Your actual model. This won't be re-created with each new generation process and this is were you keep most of your code. You can overwrite functions of the BaseXXX.php if you have to.

XXXTable.php:
Check my link from the top, This gives you access to the table itself. Personally, I do not use it that often since I put most of the code into XXX.php.

Of course you can create new classes and use them inside your XXX.php file. In order to actually do something with the data (save, read,...) you need classes that are connected (exteneded) from Doctrine's classes.

edit: also check this on a more infos with extending from the Doctrine_Table class