The sfPropelCustomSelectPlugin is a symfony plugin that provides a capability to select arbitrary columns in propel, without loosing the power of ORM. This plugin is intented for propel 1.4. If you are using propel 1.5 you can using ModelCriteria::select() and ModelCriteria::withColumn() together to achieve the same result (http://www.propelorm.org/ticket/1172).

• Install the plugin

  git clone git://github.com/nibsirahsieu/sfPropelCustomSelectPlugin.git
  

• Activate the plugin in the config/ProjectConfiguration.class.php

  [php]
  class ProjectConfiguration extends sfProjectConfiguration
  {
    public function setup()
    {
      ...
      $this->enablePlugins('sfPropelCustomSelectPlugin');
      ...
    }
  }
  

• Change the path of the symfony builder settings in the config/propel.ini file of your project:

  [ini]
  propel.builder.peer.class = plugins.sfPropelCustomSelectPlugin.lib.builder.om.PHP5CustomPeerBuilder
  propel.builder.object.class = plugins.sfPropelCustomSelectPlugin.lib.builder.om.PHP5CustomObjectBuilder
  

• (Re)build the model: ./symfony propel:build-model

[url]
http://nibsirahsieu.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/sfpropelcustomselectplugin-sample-usage/