Doctrine provides many ways for record retrieval. The fastest ways for retrieving existing records are the finder methods provided by Doctrine_Table. If you need to use more complex queries take a look at DQL API and Doctrine_Connection::query method. <code type="php"> $table = $conn->getTable("User"); // find by primary key $user = $table->find(2); if($user !== false) print $user->name; // get all users foreach($table->findAll() as $user) { print $user->name; } // finding by dql foreach($table->findByDql("name LIKE '%John%'") as $user) { print $user->created; } // finding objects with DQL $users = $conn->query("FROM User WHERE User.name LIKE '%John%'"); </code>