Doctrine 2 is an object-relational mapper (ORM) for PHP that provides transparent persistence for PHP objects. It uses the Data Mapper pattern at the heart, aiming for a complete separation of your domain/business logic from the persistence in a relational database management system. The benefit of Doctrine for the programmer is the ability to focus on object-oriented business logic and worry about persistence only as a secondary problem. This doesn’t mean persistence is downplayed by...