<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Using CodeIgniter Drivers : CodeIgniter User Guide</title> <style type='text/css' media='all'>@import url('../userguide.css');</style> <link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' media='all' href='../userguide.css' /> <script type="text/javascript" src="../nav/nav.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../nav/prototype.lite.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../nav/moo.fx.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../nav/user_guide_menu.js"></script> <meta http-equiv='expires' content='-1' /> <meta http-equiv= 'pragma' content='no-cache' /> <meta name='robots' content='all' /> <meta name='author' content='ExpressionEngine Dev Team' /> <meta name='description' content='CodeIgniter User Guide' /> </head> <body> <!-- START NAVIGATION --> <div id="nav"><div id="nav_inner"><script type="text/javascript">create_menu('../');</script></div></div> <div id="nav2"><a name="top"></a><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="myHeight.toggle();"><img src="../images/nav_toggle_darker.jpg" width="154" height="43" border="0" title="Toggle Table of Contents" alt="Toggle Table of Contents" /></a></div> <div id="masthead"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:100%"> <tr> <td><h1>CodeIgniter User Guide Version 2.0.0</h1></td> <td id="breadcrumb_right"><a href="../toc.html">Table of Contents Page</a></td> </tr> </table> </div> <!-- END NAVIGATION --> <!-- START BREADCRUMB --> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:100%"> <tr> <td id="breadcrumb"> <a href="http://codeigniter.com/">CodeIgniter Home</a> › <a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> › Using CodeIgniter Drivers </td> <td id="searchbox"><form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search"><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" id="as_sitesearch" value="codeigniter.com/user_guide/" />Search User Guide <input type="text" class="input" style="width:200px;" name="q" id="q" size="31" maxlength="255" value="" /> <input type="submit" class="submit" name="sa" value="Go" /></form></td> </tr> </table> <!-- END BREADCRUMB --> <br clear="all" /> <!-- START CONTENT --> <div id="content"> <h1>Using CodeIgniter Drivers</h1> <p>Drivers are a special type of Library that has a parent class and any number of potential child classes. Child classes have access to the parent class, but not their siblings. Drivers provide an elegant syntax in your <a href="controllers.html">controllers</a> for libraries that benefit from or require being broken down into discrete classes.</p> <p>Drivers are found in the <dfn>system/libraries</dfn> folder, in their own folder which is identically named to the parent library class. Also inside that folder is a subfolder named <kbd>drivers</kbd>, which contains all of the possible child class files.</p> <p>To use a driver you will initialize it within a controller using the following initialization function:</p> <code>$this->load->driver('<var>class name</var>'); </code> <p>Where <var>class name</var> is the name of the driver class you want to invoke. For example, to load a driver named "Some Parent" you would do this:</p> <code>$this->load->driver('<var>some_parent</var>');</code> <p>Methods of that class can then be invoked with:</p> <code>$this->some_parent->some_method();</code> <p>The child classes, the drivers themselves, can then be called directly through the parent class, without initializing them:</p> <code>$this->some_parent->child_one->some_method();<br /> $this->some_parent->child_two->another_method();</code> <h2>Creating Your Own Drivers</h2> <p>Please read the section of the user guide that discusses how to <a href="creating_drivers.html">create your own drivers</a>.</p> </div> <!-- END CONTENT --> <div id="footer"> <p> Previous Topic: <a href="creating_libraries.html">Creating Libraries</a> · <a href="#top">Top of Page</a> · <a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> · Next Topic: <a href="creating_drivers.html">Creating Drivers</a> </p> <p><a href="http://codeigniter.com">CodeIgniter</a> · Copyright © 2006-2010 · <a href="http://ellislab.com/">EllisLab, Inc.</a></p> </div> </body> </html>