Modular Separation

[b]Forum Thread:[/b] http://codeigniter.com/forums/viewthread/46669/ [b]Last update[/b] 29-08-2007

This is a solution for people that are looking for a way to keep associated models, views and controllers in the same directory and thereby making their application more modular.

[h2]Installation[/h2] First of all you should go ahead and grab yourself a copy of the File:Modular_Separation.zip.

When you are done grabbing, you should place both files in your [i]/application/libraries/[/i] folder.

And that is it!

[h3]... Unless you are running PHP 4[/h3] In which case you will have to use File:Modular_Separation_PHP4.zip. Download it and overwrite the original in your [i]/codeigniter/[/i] folder.

[h2]Usage[/h2] A module consists of at least one controller and might include a number of models and/or views. These must be placed in the [b]application/modules/MODULENAME/[/b] folder (with [b]MODULENAME[/b] being the name of your module, ie. blog, forum, etc).

The files must be placed in the following folders:

[b]/system/application/modules/MODULENAME/models/ /system/application/modules/MODULENAME/views/ /system/application/modules/MODULENAME/controllers/[/b]

Your controllers will then be accessible as [b]www.example.com/MODULENAME/CONTROLLER/METHOD[/b].

Consider this URI:

[b]www.example.com/blog/entries/view/[/b]

In the above example, CI will open the [b]application/modules/blog/controllers/entries.php[/b] controller and call the [b]view[/b] method within it.

However, an URI like this:

[b]www.example.com/blog/[/b]

Will only look for the controller with the same name as the module, ie. [b]application/modules/blog/controllers/blog.php[/b] controller and call the [b]index[/b] method.

In order to let you call methods from your default controller (the one with the same name as your module, application/modules/blog/controllers/blog.php), CI will in fact handle this URI:

[b]www.example.com/blog/entries/view/[/b]

By first looking for a method called entries in [b]application/modules/blog/controllers/blog.php[/b] and then for a [b]application/modules/blog/controllers/entries.php[/b] and call its [b]view[/b] method.

You can even put controllers in sub-folders. If you do, the same rules apply as above, except the URI will need to have the FOLDERNAME before your MODULENAME:

[b]www.example.com/FOLDERNAME/MODULENAME/METHOD/[/b] (if default controllers has the called METHOD)

or

[b]www.example.com/FOLDERNAME/MODULENAME/CONTROLLER/METHOD/[/b]