[ciapug] Symphony - peer classes

[carl-olsen at mchsi.com]

I'm reading about Symfony and I've installed it on my desktop and on the web server.  I'm on the chapter dealing with Object Relational Mapping (ORM), and it shows 8 classes being created for two tables in the database (blog_articles and blog_comments).  It creates two base classes and two classes that inherit from them (where you add additional methods).  It also shows two peer base classes and two peer classes that inherit from them.  The only difference between the regular classes and the peer classes appears to be the method calls are static in the peer classes.  The data layer uses propel and creole for the relational mapping.

Does anyone know what the peer classes do other than making it easier to write method calls in the code?  Is that their main purpose?

Carl Olsen
Des Moines, IA