Copying Persisted Objects

Propel provides the copy() method to perform copies of mapped row in the database. Note that Propel does not override the __clone() method; this allows you to create local duplicates of objects that map to the same persisted database row (should you need to do this).

The copy() method by default performs shallow copies, meaning that any foreign key references will remain the same.

<?php

$a = new Author();
$a->setFirstName("Aldous");
$a->setLastName("Huxley");

$p = new Publisher();
$p->setName("Harper");

$b = new Book();
$b->setTitle("Brave New World");
$b->setPublisher($p);
$b->setAuthor($a);

$b->save(); // so that auto-increment IDs are created

$bcopy = $b->copy();
var_export($bcopy->getId() == $b->getId()); // FALSE
var_export($bcopy->getAuthorId() == $b->getAuthorId()); // TRUE
var_export($bcopy->getAuthor() == $b->getAuthor()); // TRUE

Deep Copies

By calling copy() with a TRUE parameter, Propel will create a deep copy of the object; this means that any related objects will also be copied.

To continue with example from above:

<?php

$bdeep = $b->copy(true);
var_export($bdeep->getId() == $b->getId()); // FALSE
var_export($bdeep->getAuthorId() == $b->getAuthorId()); // FALSE
var_export($bdeep->getAuthor() == $b->getAuthor()); // FALSE

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