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wtf is common?

doctrine/common — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-26

5,812PHPAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

TL;DR

A shared PHP utility library that serves as the internal foundation for Doctrine ORM and Doctrine DBAL, most developers encounter it as an automatic Composer dependency of those tools rather than installing it directly.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((doctrine-common))
    What It Is
      Shared PHP library
      Doctrine foundation
      Transitive dependency
    Used By
      Doctrine ORM
      Doctrine DBAL
      Other Doctrine packages
    Tech
      PHP
      Composer
    Status
      Actively maintained
      CI and coverage tracked

Code map

Detail Auto

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filefunction / class

Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Install Doctrine ORM or Doctrine DBAL in a PHP project and Doctrine Common will be pulled in automatically as a shared dependency.

REASON 2

Write a Doctrine-compatible extension package that uses shared utilities from this common foundation.

REASON 3

Audit or contribute to the shared utilities that underpin both Doctrine ORM and Doctrine DBAL without diving into either package separately.

What's in the stack?

PHP

How it stacks up

doctrine/commonzoneminder/zoneminderspatie/laravel-activitylog
Stars5,8125,8245,834
LanguagePHPPHPPHP
Setup difficultyeasymoderateeasy
Complexity2/53/52/5
Audiencedeveloperops devopsdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Rarely installed directly, comes in automatically when you require doctrine/orm or doctrine/dbal via Composer.

Wtf does this do

Doctrine Common is a PHP library maintained as part of the Doctrine project, a widely used collection of open-source tools for database-related work in PHP. The project describes itself as providing extensions to core PHP functionality, but the README is extremely brief and does not explain what those extensions are, how to install the library, or how to use it. The library exists primarily as a shared dependency. Other packages in the Doctrine ecosystem, including Doctrine ORM (which maps database rows to PHP objects) and Doctrine DBAL (which provides a database abstraction layer), pull in Doctrine Common as a foundation for shared code. Developers typically encounter this package indirectly as a transitive dependency of those higher-level tools, rather than by depending on it directly in their own projects. The README provides three links: the main Doctrine website at doctrine-project.org, a dedicated documentation section for Doctrine Common, and a GitHub releases page. For anyone who needs to understand what the library actually contains, the documentation site or the source code would be more informative than the README. The project runs continuous integration and tracks code coverage, which indicates it is actively maintained. Because the README is so sparse, there is simply not much more to describe without going beyond what the source material states. If you need to use this library, the official Doctrine documentation is the right place to start.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1
I'm using Doctrine ORM in a PHP project. What does Doctrine Common provide and do I ever need to interact with it directly?
Prompt 2
How do I install Doctrine Common via Composer and what PHP version does it require?
Prompt 3
I'm writing a custom Doctrine-compatible extension. Which Doctrine Common classes should I use for shared functionality?
Prompt 4
What is the relationship between Doctrine Common, Doctrine ORM, and Doctrine DBAL? Which one should I require in composer.json?

Frequently asked questions

wtf is common?

A shared PHP utility library that serves as the internal foundation for Doctrine ORM and Doctrine DBAL, most developers encounter it as an automatic Composer dependency of those tools rather than installing it directly.

What language is common written in?

Mainly PHP. The stack also includes PHP.

How hard is common to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is common for?

Mainly developer.

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