######################### Using CodeIgniter Drivers ######################### 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 :doc:`controllers <controllers>` for libraries that benefit from or require being broken down into discrete classes. Drivers are found in the system/libraries folder, in their own folder which is identically named to the parent library class. Also inside that folder is a subfolder named drivers, which contains all of the possible child class files. To use a driver you will initialize it within a controller using the following initialization function:: $this->load->driver('class name'); Where class name is the name of the driver class you want to invoke. For example, to load a driver named "Some Parent" you would do this:: $this->load->driver('some_parent'); Methods of that class can then be invoked with:: $this->some_parent->some_method(); The child classes, the drivers themselves, can then be called directly through the parent class, without initializing them:: $this->some_parent->child_one->some_method(); $this->some_parent->child_two->another_method(); Creating Your Own Drivers ========================= Please read the section of the user guide that discusses how to :doc:`create your own drivers <creating_drivers>`.