Question

I’m trying to call the method of a loaded model by a variable name instead of a hard coded method name. This will give me a ton of abstraction in my controller without using a bunch of if-then statements.

Here’s the Model

class Reports_model extends CI_Model {

  public function __construct()
  {
    $this->load->database();
  }

  public function backlog()
  {
    //Do stuff
  }

What I want is to be able to call the backlog function by a variable name. Here’s the controller:

class Reports extends CI_Controller {

  public function __construct() {
    parent::__construct();
  }

  public function get_reports($report_name)
  {
    $this->load->model('reports_model');
    $report_name = 'backlog';
    $data['data'] = $this->reports_model->$report_name();
  }

From what I can tell (and I’m probably missing something stupid), my code is exactly like Example #2 on http://php.net/manual/en/functions.variable-functions.php, but I’m getting this error at the line of the function call:

Undefined property: Reports::$reports_model

Answer 1

You can use autoloader for this model. Autoloader file is in appilication/config/ folder. You must you model in

$autoload['model'] = array('Reports_model');

Or you can use

class Reports extends CI_Controller {

  public function __construct() {
    parent::__construct();
    $this->load->model('Reports_model');

  }

  public function get_reports($report_name)
  {
    $report_name = 'backlog';
    $data['data'] = $this->Reports_model->backlog();
  }
}

You must be write upper first character of the model like this : $this->Reports_model->backlog()
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/models.html#anatomy