1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
|
<!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> ›
Creating Libraries
</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>Creating Libraries</h1>
<p>When we use the term "Libraries" we are normally referring to the classes that are located in the <kbd>libraries</kbd>
directory and described in the Class Reference of this user guide. In this case, however, we will instead describe how you can create your own libraries within
your <dfn>application</dfn> directory in order to maintain separation between your local resources and the global framework resources.</p>
<h2>Storage</h2>
<p>Your library classes should be placed within your <dfn>application/libraries</dfn> folder, as this is where Code Igniter will look for them when
they are initialized. If your class is named identically to a native class from the <dfn>system/libraries</dfn> folder, your version
will be used instead.</p>
<h2>Naming Conventions</h2>
<ul>
<li>File names must be capitalized. For example: <dfn>Myclass.php</dfn></li>
<li>Class declarations must be capitalized. For example: <kbd>class Myclass</kbd></li>
<li>Class names and file names must match.</li>
</ul>
<h2>The Class File</h2>
<p>Classes should have this basic prototype (Note: We are using the name <kbd>Myclass</kbd> purely as an example):</p>
<code><?php if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');<br />
<br />
// Initialize the class<br />
$obj =& get_instance();<br />
$obj->init_class('Myclass');
<br /><br />
class Myclass {<br />
<br />
function some_function()<br />
{<br />
}<br />
}<br /><br />
?></code>
<p>You'll notice in the above example that the class is instantiated directly from the file itself using these two lines of code:</p>
<code>$obj =& get_instance();<br />
$obj->init_class(<kbd>'Myclass'</kbd>);</code>
<p class="important">Make sure and submit your class name in the first parameter of the <kbd>$obj->init_class()</kbd> function. In the
above example it is <kbd>Myclass</kbd></p>
<h2>Using Your Class</h2>
<p>From within any of your <a href="controllers.html">Controller</a> functions you can initialize your class using the standard:</p>
<code>$this->load->library('<kbd>Mclass</kbd>');</code>
<p>Where <em>Myclass</em> is the file name, without the ".php" file extension. You can submit the file name capitalized or lower case.
Code Igniter doesn't care.</p>
<p>Once loaded you can access your class using:</p>
<code>$this-><kbd>myclass</kbd>->some_function(); // Object instances will always be lower case
</code>
<h2>Setting a Different Class Variable Name</h2>
<p>If you would like the object variable ($this->myclass) set to a different name you can specify it when initializing your class. For
example, let's initialize it as <kbd>foobar</kbd>:</p>
<code>$obj =& get_instance();<br />
$obj->init_class('Myclass', <kbd>'foobar'</kbd>);</code>
<p>In the above example you would still load your class like this:</p>
<code>$this->load->library('<kbd>Mclass</kbd>');</code>
<p>But you would use it like this:<p>
<code>$this-><kbd>foobar</kbd>->function();</code>
<h2>Passing Parameters When Initializing Your Class</h2>
<p>In the library loading function you can dynamically pass data via the second parameter and it will be passed to your class
constructor:</p>
<code>
$params = array('type' => 'large', 'color' => 'red');<br />
<br />
$this->load->library('Myclass', <kbd>$params</kbd>);</code>
<p>If you use this feature you must set up your class constructor to expect data:</p>
<code><?php if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');<br />
<br />
// Initialize the class<br />
$obj =& get_instance();<br />
$obj->init_class('Myclass');
<br /><br />
class Myclass {<br />
<br />
function Myclass($params)<br />
{<br />
// Do something with $params<br />
}<br />
}<br /><br />
?></code>
<p>You can also pass parameters via the third parameter of the <dfn>$obj->init_class()</dfn> function:</p>
<code><?php if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');<br />
<br />
$params = array('type' => 'large', 'color' => 'red');<br /><br />
// Initialize the class<br />
$obj =& get_instance();<br />
$obj->init_class('Myclass', 'myclass', $params);
<br /><br />
class Myclass {<br />
<br />
function Myclass($params)<br />
{<br />
// Do something with $params<br />
}<br />
}<br /><br />
?></code>
<h2>Utilizing Code Igniter Resources within Your Library</h2>
<p>To access Code Igniter's native resources within your library use the <kbd>get_instance()</kbd> function.
This function returns the Code Igniter super object.</p>
<p>Normally from within your controller functions you will call any of the available Code Igniter functions using the <kbd>$this</kbd> construct:</p>
<code>
<strong>$this</strong>->load->helper('url');<br />
<strong>$this</strong>->load->library('session');<br />
<strong>$this</strong>->config->item('base_url');<br />
etc.
</code>
<p><kbd>$this</kbd>, however, only works directly within your controllers, your models, or your views.
If you would like to use Code Igniter's classes from within your own custom classes you can do so as follows:</p>
<p>First, assign the Code Igniter object to a variable:</p>
<code>$obj =& get_instance();</code>
<p>Once you've assigned the object to a variable, you'll use that variable <em>instead</em> of <kbd>$this</kbd>:</p>
<code>
$obj =& get_instance();<br /><br />
$obj->load->helper('url');<br />
$obj->load->library('session');<br />
$obj->config->item('base_url');<br />
etc.
</code>
<p class="important"><strong>Note:</strong> You'll notice that the above get_instance() function is being passed by reference:
<br /><br />
<var>$obj =& get_instance();</var>
<br /><br />
<kbd>This is very important.</kbd> Assigning by reference allows you to use the original Code Igniter object rather than creating a copy of it.</p>
</div>
<!-- END CONTENT -->
<div id="footer">
<p>
Previous Topic: <a href="libraries.html">Using Code Igniter Libraries</a>
·
<a href="#top">Top of Page</a> ·
<a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> ·
Next Topic: <a href="core_classes.html">Creating Core System Classes</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>
|