doctrine2/manual/new/docs/en/working-with-objects/dealing-with-relations.txt

+++ Creating related records

When accessing related records and if those records do not exists Doctrine automatically creates new records.

<code type="php">
// NOTE: related record have always the first letter in uppercase
$email = $user->Email;

$email->address = 'jackdaniels@drinkmore.info';

$user->save();

// alternative:

$user->Email->address = 'jackdaniels@drinkmore.info';

$user->save();
</code>


+++ Retrieving related records

You can retrieve related records by the very same {{Doctrine_Record}} methods you've already propably used for accessing record properties. When accessing related record you just simply use the class names. 

<code type="php">
print $user->Email['address'];

print $user->Phonenumber[0]->phonenumber;

print $user->Group[0]->name;
</code>


+++ 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.

<code type="php">
$user->Email['address'] = 'koskenkorva@drinkmore.info';

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

$user->save();

// saves the email and phonenumber
</code>


+++ Deleting related records

You can delete related records individually be calling {{delete()}} on each record. If you want to delete a whole record graph just call delete on the owner record.

<code type="php">
$user->Email->delete();

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

// deleting user and all related objects:

$user->delete();
</code>


+++ Working with associations