The installation of doctrine is very easy. Just get the latest revision of Doctrine from http://doctrine.pengus.net/svn/trunk. You need a SVN (Subversion) client for downloading Doctrine. In order to check out Doctrine in the current directory using the **svn** command line tool use the following code: svn co http://doctrine.pengus.net/svn/trunk . If you do not have a SVN client, chose one from the list below. Find the **Checkout** option and enter http://doctrine.pengus.net/svn/trunk in the **path** or **repository url** parameter. There is no need for a username or password to check out Doctrine. * [http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ TortoiseSVN] a Windows application that integrates into Windows Explorer * [http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/development_tools/svnx.html svnx] a Mac OS X GUI svn application * Eclipse has SVN integration through the [http://subclipse.tigris.org/ subeclipse] plugin +++ Include and autoload In order to use Doctrine in your project it must first be included. require_once('path-to-doctrine/lib/Doctrine.php'); Doctrine support [http://www.php.net/autoload Autoloading] for including files so that you do not have to include anything more then the base file. There are two different strategies that can be used to do this: If you do use the **__autoload** function for your own logic you can use it. function __autoload($class) { Doctrine::autoload($class); } If your project uses autoload and/or you have other libraries that use it you could use [http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.spl-autoload-register.php spl_autoload_register] to register more then one autoloading function. spl_autoload_register(array('Doctrine', 'autoload'));