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MapBuilders are classes that construct a model of a database at runtime.
MapBuilders support a single database, so this class essentially serves as a wrapper around the DatabaseMap class. This interface can be used for any class that needs to construct a runtime database model; by default in Propel the MapBuilder.tpl generates a class for your datamodel that implements this interface and re-creates your database using the DatabaseMap, TableMap, ColumnMap, and ValidatorMap classes.
GENERAL NOTE ------------ The propel.map classes are abstract building-block classes for modeling the database at runtime. These classes are similar (a lite version) to the propel.engine.database.model classes, which are build-time modeling classes. These classes in themselves do not do any database metadata lookups, but instead are used by the MapBuilder classes that were generated for your datamodel. The MapBuilder that was created for your datamodel build a representation of your database by creating instances of the DatabaseMap, TableMap, ColumnMap, etc. classes. See propel/templates/om/php5/MapBuilder.tpl and the classes generated by that template for your datamodel to further understand how these are put together.
