<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>Code Igniter 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"> window.onload = function() { myHeight = new fx.Height('nav', {duration: 400}); myHeight.hide(); } </script> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <meta http-equiv='expires' content='-1' /> <meta http-equiv= 'pragma' content='no-cache' /> <meta name='robots' content='all' /> <meta name='author' content='Rick Ellis' /> <meta name='description' content='Code Igniter 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.jpg" width="153" height="44" 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>Code Igniter User Guide Version 1.5.0</h1></td> <td id="breadcrumb_right"><a href="../toc.html">Full Table of Contents</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://www.codeigniter.com/">Code Igniter Home</a> › <a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> › MVC </td> <td id="searchbox"><form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search"><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" id="as_sitesearch" value="www.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>Model-View-Controller</h1> <p>Code Igniter is based on the Model-View-Controller development pattern. MVC is a software approach that separates application logic from presentation. In practice, it permits your web pages to contain minimal scripting since the presentation is separate from the PHP scripting.</p> <ul> <li>The <strong>Model</strong> represents your data structures. Typically your model classes will contains functions that help you retrieve, insert, and update information in your your database.</li> <li>The <strong>View</strong> is the information that is being presented to a user. A View will normally be a web page, but in Code Igniter, a view can also be a page fragment like a header or footer. It can also be an RSS page, or any other type of "page".</li> <li>The <strong>Controller</strong> serves as an <em>intermediary</em> between the Model, the View, and any other resources needed to process the HTTP request and generate a web page.</li> </ul> <p>Code Igniter has a fairly loose approach to MVC since Models are not required. If you don't need the added separation, or find that maintaining models requires more complexity than you want, you can ignore them and build your application minimally using Controllers and Views. Code Igniter also enables you to incorporate your own existing scripts, or even develop core libraries for the system, enabling you to work in a way that makes the most sense to you.</p> </div> <!-- END CONTENT --> <div id="footer"> <p> Previous Topic: <a href="appflow.html">Application Flow Chart</a> · <a href="#top">Top of Page</a> · <a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> · Next Topic: <a href="goals.html">Architectural Goals</a> <p> <p><a href="http://www.codeigniter.com">Code Igniter</a> · Copyright © 2006 · <a href="http://www.pmachine.com">pMachine, Inc.</a></p> </div> </body> </html>