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Introduction

The Doctrine DataBase Abstraction Layer (DBAL) offers an object-oriented API and a lot of additional, horizontal features like database schema introspection and manipulation.

The fact that the Doctrine DBAL abstracts the access to the concrete database away through the use of interfaces, makes it possible to implement custom drivers that may use existing native or self-made APIs. For example, the DBAL ships with a driver for Oracle databases that uses the oci8 extension under the hood.

The following database vendors are currently supported:

  • MySQL
  • Oracle
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • PostgreSQL
  • SQLite

The Doctrine DBAL can be used independently of the [Doctrine Object-Relational Mapper (ORM)](https://www.doctrine-project.org/projects/orm.html). In order to use the DBAL all you need is the class loader provided by [Composer](https://getcomposer.org/), to be able to autoload the classes:

1<?php

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';


2


3

Now you are able to load classes that are in the /path/to/doctrine directory like /path/to/doctrine/Doctrine/DBAL/DriverManager.php which we will use later in this documentation to configure our first Doctrine DBAL connection.