CodeIgniter - MVC approach question

Question

I'm currently making an app in CodeIgniter and I was wondering on how I should deal with models. The way I have it set up at the moment:

Views: display Controllers: display related things, form validation, redirects, talk to libraries, etc Libraries: do the heavy lifting, talk to the models, generate error messages, logs, etc Models: talk to the DB

(I'm currently using Active Record for most things)

Let me go straight to an example:

I have an Auth library and inside I have queries that area somewhat similar, varying only by the value in the WHERE clause.

Ex:

get_by_id($id);
get_by_password_hash($email);
get_by_email($email);

Should I have a bunch of these duplicate model functions or should I just have one simple function where I pass WHERE clauses and whatnot via the library?

Ex:

$where = array('id' => $id);
get($where);

Please let me know if you'd like me to clarify anything. Thanks in advance.

cwallenpoole · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-25 19:47:26Z

If you have a lot of get_by_* methods for a given model, then it does make sense to use the magic method as TaylorOtwell suggested. Actually, the __call method, as well as __get and __set are used frequently in other frameworks to make it easy to do exactly what you're talking about. Just remember CI will not play nice with the __call Magic method on the controller while mapping (but that won't effect the model).

Basic way I look at CMV in CI:

Libraries -- this is where the bulk of the "rendering logic" happens but generally should be control/model/view agnostic. Almost entirely stateless (my preference).
Helpers -- utility functions, mostly view-related (everything else is really better off as a library (more orthogonal, yada, yada, yada))
Controller -- Loads libraries/models and calls methods
Model -- DB wrapping layer. Almost entirely stateful (my preference).
Views -- Display data

Frequently, the controller will do things like:

class Users
{
    function display( $id )
    {
        $this->load->library( 'myformatlib' );
        $this->load->model( 'mymodel' );
        $data = $this->mymodel->get_user( $id );
        $formatted = $this->myformatlib->addColors( $data );
        $this->mymodel->incrementViews( $id );
        $this->load->view( 'full_user', $formatted );
    }
}

As to passing where clauses -- DB queries should almost be exclusively relegated to the model unless there is no other option or it would be excessively cumbersome to do so (but I would wonder if you couldn't refactor that).

TaylorOtwell · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-25 15:30:58Z

1

You could use PHP's __call Magic Method on your model to handle any simple where clause:

public function __call($method, $parameters)
{
    if (strpos($method, 'get_by_') === 0)
    {
        $this->get(array(substr($method, 7), $parameters[0]));
    }
}

answered Jul 25, 2011 at 15:30

TaylorOtwell

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Comments

Sukumar · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-25 19:32:35Z

I know exactly where you are coming from since I had the same doubts a few months ago.

I use https://bitbucket.org/philsturgeon/codeigniter-base-model/src/93a643d0d46f/MY_Model.php

Just use it as a library. You create models as

// user_m.php
<?php (defined('BASEPATH')) OR exit('No direct script access allowed');
class User_m extends MY_Model
{}

The above can have any custom functions you want other than the basic CRUD ones.

You run the code in your controller as

   $this->load->model('user_m');
   $this->data['user'] = $this->user_m->get($user_id);

or

   $this->load->model('user_m');
   $this->data['user'] = $this->user_m->get_by(array('something_id' => $something));

Its got all the basic CRUD operations you need. Just read the code, its pretty well documented too.

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