Question

new to CodeIgniter and MVC/OOP as well. My current problem that I am trying to work through involves 2 tables.

---

Gallery Table

id

name

clientID

---

Client Table

id

Name

---

The gallery[‘clientID’] references the client[‘id’] so I can retrieve the name. Currently my gallery_model.php file looks like

class Gallery_model extends CI_Model
    {

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

    //Get all in progress galleries from client
    public function get_progress($id = FALSE , $clientRef = '205')
    {
        if($id == FALSE) {
            $query = $this->db->get_where('gallery', array('clientRef' => $clientRef, 'finish' => '0' ));
            return $query->result_array();
        }
    }
    //Get all proofed galleries from client
    public function get_proofed($id = FALSE , $clientRef = '205')
    {
        //get all galleries from client
        if ($id == FALSE) {
            $query = $this->db->get_where('gallery',array('clientRef' => $clientRef, 'finish' => '1'));
            return $query->result_array();
        }
    }

    //get the gallery selected
    public function get_gallery($id , $clientRef = '205')
    {
        //This returns individual galleries
        $query = $this->db->get_where('gallery', array('id' => $id));
        return $query->row_array();
    }
}

My controller looks like:

    public function index()
    {
        //Proofed Albums
        $data['gallery'] = $this->gallery_model->get_proofed();
        //Albums that are in progress
        $data['in_progress'] = $this->gallery_model->get_progress();

        $this->load->view('templates/header',$data);
        $this->load->view('gallery/index',$data);
        $this->load->view('templates/footer');
    }

Then the view’s out put is

$gallery['name'] - $gallery['clientId']

What is the best practice for something like this. I know it’s probably simple, but I want to start out doing this correctly. Should I use $this->db->join();

Thanks in advance for the help on this.

Answer 1

Using $this->db->join() is indeed the best (and the only way done via Active Records without adding your own SQL) way to get information from several tables all in one query.

You’re probably already aware of this, but just in case (and for the benefit of future people visiting this page), the CodeIgniter User Guide has a nice page detailing how to use Active Records.

The default of Inner Join should be fine for your purposes. If you have gallery entries without clients linked to them and you want them to be included in the results, then you may want to consider the other types of join, which you can read about here.