Question

I’m trying to display data from my database in a Codeigniter view. Seems like it should be simple, but it’s just not working.

I’m getting 2 errors: undefined variable ($movielist, in the view) and invalid argument for php foreach, also in the view.

Any idea how I can get this to work? Code below.

Controller

function displayMovies() {

$this->load->model('movie_list_model');

$data['movielist'] = $this->movie_list_model->getList();

$this->load->view('movielist_view', $data);
}

Model

function getList() {

        $query = $this->db->query('SELECT firstname, lastname, favorite_movie FROM movies');
        return $query->result();


        if ($query->num_rows() > 0) {

        foreach ($query->result_array() as $row)
        {
             echo $row['firstname'];
             echo $row['lastname'];
             echo $row['favorite_movie'];
        }   
    }

View

      <?php foreach($movielist as $mlist)
        {
            echo  $mlist->firstname . '<br />'; 
            echo  $mlist->lastname . '<br />'; 
            echo  $mlist->favorite_movie; 
        }
      ?>

Answer 1

If( the query doesn’t find any rows, it will return null, resulting in the undefined error in your view. The invalid argument error is because you can’t iterate through null.

A safety would be including something like this in your view:

if($movielist)
{
    /* foreach() {} */
}

Also, your model should only return data (not echo it).

function getList() {
    $query = $this->db->query('SELECT firstname, lastname, favorite_movie FROM movies');
    return $query->result(); /* returns an object */
    // Alternatively:
    // return $query->result_array(); /* returns an array */
}

I also recommend using Active record:

function getList() {
    $this->db->select('firstname');
    $this->db->select('lastname');
    $this->db->select('favorite_movie');

    $query = $this->get('movies');
    return $query->result();
}

Good luck!