Question

My Codeigniter project has a long list of identical categories, each with many identical methods.

To make it dynamic and cleaner, I have used _remap functions to load the identical methods within the controller. Now I am trying to replicate the controllers

e.g. My controllers
Antelope.php Bat.php Cuckoo.php Dog.php Elephant.php… Zebra.php all have this format below (I used _remap to condense all the similar methods into one).

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Antelope extends CI_Controller {

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

    private function _remap($method, $params=array()){
       $this->animal = ucwords($this->router->fetch_class());
       $allowed_methods = array("Tame", "Buy", "Sell", "Gift");
       if (in_array($method, $allowed_methods)):
           // Model zoo has been autoloaded      
           data["foobar"] = $this->zoo->get_data($this->animal, $method);
           // Stuff goes here
       else:
          $this->index();
       endif;
    }

    public function index(){
       // Stuff goes here
    }
}

/** End of file Antelope.php **/

The remapping works fine for Antelope and all its remapped methods, but is there a way for me to apply this same method to all the other files so I can just have a single Animal.php Controller file instead?

I guess I may use routes.php, but the list of Controllers is too long; I’d have hundreds of lines in the routes file if I explicitly list each “animal” routing.

Any way around this?

EDIT: The “animal types” are listed in a database, and will keep increasing over time. I don’t want to keep revisiting the project to create new controllers or add new classes for the new elements in the database! This is why I want to use a dynamic routing method. Also, the project is a site redesign, so the URLs like http://www.website.com/antelope/buy/3 need to remain the same.

Answer 1

The trick is to realize that the animal type is variable and you’re trying to map it to static files. Don’t do this. Just pass the animal as the first argument to the index function. That’s what arguments are for: variables.

class Animal extends CI_Controller{
    function __construct(){
        parent::__construct();
    }

    function index($animal){
        echo "I'm the {$animal}!";
    }
}

And set up the single route:

$route['animal/(:any)'] = "animal/index/$1";

Now, if you head to http://localhost/yourapp/animal/antelope

CodeIgniter will echo “I’m the antelope!”

Edit after your comment:

CodeIgniter goes from top to bottom in your routes file and breaks when it finds a valid one. You can place this at the bottom of your config/routes.php file:

$route['(:any)/buy/(:id)'] = "animal/$1/buy/$2";
$route[':any'] = "animal/index/$1";
//etc

You’ll need to re-route all other controllers above this.