1 - update config/schema.yml

2 - "php symfony propel:build-sql" from the command line, that will build the correct propel crap from the schema.yml

3 - now, here you should be able to just run "php symfony propel:insert-sql" but I always get a [wrapped: invalid data source name] error that I have no idea what it means, so you can also do:

> mysqladmin -u root -p create DB_NAME
> mysql -u root -p DB_NAME < data/sql/lib.model.schema.sql

obviously you don't have to do the "mysqladmin" command if you have already created the db, and you don't have to worry about the -p (password) if your localhost root has no password. You can also open the XAMPP phpAdmin and import the lib.model.schema.sql file into your db that way.

4 - then, if you changed your schema you will want your model bases to reflect the change, so delete the cache (delete everything in the cache folder) and then run: "php symfony propel:build-all" to rebuild everything, the documentation says to use "php symfony propel:build-model" but that doesn't redo all the base* classes of the model

I got all this from the middle and bottomish part of http://www.symfony-project.org/book/1_2/08-Inside-the-Model-Layer

propel:data-load in ch16 will also let you import data from a text file, to populate your db

To just rebuild the sql and the classes:

php symfony propel:build-sql
php symfony propel:build-all --classes-only

how to allow your #symfony app to support more than one db.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/733224/multiple-databases-support-in-symfony

this turned out to be harder than I expected due to the lack of documentation on how to build a database driver since I guess people that use Symfony are happy with either Propel or Doctrine.

The first problem I had was how to get configuration info to my new custom ORM. I started with databases.yml:

===== the databases.yml file =====
ENVIRONMENT:
  propel:
    param:
      classname:  DebugPDO
      dsn:        mysql:dbname=ENVIRONMENT;host=localhost
      username:   USERNAME
      password:   PASSWORD
  OTHER_ORM:
    param:
      name:       DB_NAME
      host:       localhost
      username:   USERNAME
      password:   PASSWORD

all:
  propel:
    class:        sfPropelDatabase
    param:
      phptype:    mysql
      classname:  PropelPDO
      encoding:   utf8
      persistent: true
      pooling:    true
  OTHER_ORM:
    class:        sfOtherOrmDatabase
=====

now, the "class" variable is important, because in your plugin directory you need something like the following structure:

=====
sfOtherOrmPlugin/
  config/
    sfOtherOrmPluginConfiguration.class.php
  lib/
    database/
      sfOtherOrmDatabase.class.php
    ...
=====

Notice that sfOtherOrmDatabase.class.php maps to "class: sfOtherOrmDatabase" in the .yml file.

the sfOtherOrmDatabase class needs to extend the sfDatabase class and implement connect() and shutdown() methods.

The sfOtherOrmPluginConfiguration class needs to extend the sfPluginConfiguration class and implement initialize().

Now, where I got hung up is actually connecting, I thought by implementing connect(), Symfony would call connect() automatically, but it doesn't. And, since I was using Propel code as my template, I was confused because Propel never actually calls sfPropelDatabase::connect(), it uses its own Propel::getConnection() instead.

However, initialize is always called, so I decided my custom class would connect on initialization, so let's go ahead and extend sfDatabase::initialize to call connect():

===== sfOtherOrmDatabase::initialize() =====
public function initialize($parameters = array())
{
  parent::initialize($parameters);
  $this->connect();
  return true;
    
}//method
=====

Now my custom db orm automatically connects and is ready for use when I get into the controller. And I am free from Propel and Doctrine so I can use databases like MongoDb.