This guide is for developers who want to use the ORM Propel on a hosting environment where command line access is restricted.

Preamble

• The ORM allows you to link the objects of an application to the tables of a database. You manipulate the data via PHP objects rather than writing raw SQL.
• Propel is the abstraction layer that manages these interactions (relations, joins, pagination) to simplify code maintenance.

Particularities & limitations

• Propel is not pre-installed via Pear. You must install it manually in your project.
• It is imperative to download the "Conventional Package" version of Propel.
• CLI commands (such as propel-gen) are not executable on the server.
• Consequently, Propel is only used in "Runtime" mode in production. Class generation (build) must be performed locally.
• The workflow consists of generating the code in a development environment and then transferring the resulting files to the server.

Dependencies

• The complete set of libraries required for Propel is available, except for Phing.
• The absence of Phing does not impact production, as this tool is only required during the local generation phase.