Question

I’m working with a controller name page.php. This is what I have:

class Page extends CI_Controller {

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

    public function index() {
        show_404();
    }

    public function view($id) {
        $query = $this->db->query("
            SELECT * FROM proposals
            WHERE id='$id'");

        if ($query->num_rows() == 1) {
            $row = $query->row();
            $data['proposal_id']          = $id;
            $data['proposal_title']       = $row->title;
            $data['proposal_proposer']    = $row->proposer;
            $data['proposal_summary']     = $row->summary;
            $data['proposal_description'] = $row->description;
            $data['proposal_date']        = $row->date;
            $data['proposal_vote']        = $row->vote;
            $data['proposal_source']      = $row->source;
            $query->free_result();   
        } else {
            show_404();
        }

        // Get user data
        $user_info['logged_in'] = "";
        $user_info['username']  = "";
        $user_info['user_id']   = "";
        $user_info['score']     = "";

        // Get special variables needed for the header
        $header_data['page_title']       = htmlspecialchars($data['proposal_title']);
        $header_data['page_description'] = htmlspecialchars($data['proposal_summary']);

        // Get special variables needed for the footer
        $footer_data['stats_proposals'] = "12";
        $footer_data['stats_users']     = "42";

        // Check if this is an edit


        // Load the views (interfaces) in order
        $this->load->view('templates/header', $header_data);
        $this->load->view('page',             $data);
        $this->load->view('templates/footer', $footer_data);
    }
}

As shown above, I am manually calling the header using $this->load->view('templates/header', $header_data); and passing some info to it. However, in my case, this info will always be the same across the site. There a way for me to call some sort of controller BEFORE loading the view for the header?

Answer 1

You could create a library & model to complete all your DB queries. This would also clean up the $query = $this->db->query() bit so that it would be in your model rather than your controller.

Then, each time you need to load the header view, you could use this in your controller:

$header_data = $this->library_name->function_to_get_header_info($id);
$this->load->view('templates/header', $header_data);

The actual library would accept the variables needed to create this header view (for example, $id). It would make a call to the model, which would perform any actual DB queries (for example, $query = $this->db->query("SELECT * FROM proposals WHERE id='$id'");). Then the library would make the data returned by the model usable by the view (for example, setting page_title & page_description to $row->title & $row->summary, respectively).