Question

Should I not be using Index as the name for a controller class in CodeIgniter? I have an Index controller, and I’m seeing its methods being called multiple times. More specifically, I always see its index method called first, whether or not I’m visiting a path that should be routed there.

In application/controllers/index.php

class Index extends CI_Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        echo "index";
    }
    public function blah()
    {
        echo "blah";
    }
}

When I visit index/blah, I see indexblah printed. When I visit index/index, I see indexindex. If I rename the controller to something else (e.g. Foo), it doesn’t have a problem. That’s the obvious workaround, but can anyone tell me why this is happening? Should I report this as a bug to CodeIgniter?

(Notes: I have no routes set up in configs/routes.php; my index.php is outside the CodeIgniter tree)

Answer 1

To further clarify what the issue is, in PHP4 Constructors were a function that had the same name as the Class…

example

class MyClass
{
    public function MyClass()
    {
        // as a constructor, this function is called every 
        // time a new "MyClass" object is created
    }
}

Now for the PHP5 version (Which codeigniter now, as of 2.0.x, holds as a system requirement)

class MyClass
{
    public function __construct()
    {
        // as a constructor, this function is called every 
        // time a new "MyClass" object is created
    }
}

So To answer the question that addresses the problem…

Should I not be using Index as the name for a controller class in CodeIgniter?

I believe it would be best to not choose Index as a controller name as the index() function has a reserved use in codeigniter. This could cause issues depending on your PHP configuration.