I was growing tired of having to call get_instance to get the CI super object in all my libs and the occasional view so I set up a helper. Makes calling CI so much easier.

Just call CI() where ever you want to get Code Igniter.

Where do you add the function?

Just any helper. I have a file at helpers/misc_helpers.php that I load in my bootstrap which contains different functions i used throughout my application like pr (a better print_r), array2XML, br2nl etc.

Because a few people are likely to cut-n-paste this, you might want to remove the extraneous ; from the get_instance line.

jedd - 08 April 2009 10:14 AM

Because a few people are likely to cut-n-paste this, you might want to remove the extraneous ; from the get_instance line.

Hmm… that’s pretty strange. Not in my original code and the forum keeps inserting it when I try to remove it. Not sure why it’s putting that in there. Nice catch thou.

Verily, the forums work in mysterious ways.  I usually see weirdness with special characters outside of codeblocks or with indenting inside them, and the well known js script removal stuff ... but it’s especially odd here.  Try doing =& followed by a space - I see that construct used way more often than using the & adjacent to the function name and it doesn’t seem to be afflicted thus.

My solution is to use this class (application/libraries/Librarybase.php)

Then I’m just using this as a base class:

meglio, This is a good solution but would not work in all cases like if you wanted to access the CI super object from a helper or a view. Since these are not classes, they could not extend this base class.

Sure, but as mentioned in the subject:

tired of having to call get_instance to get the CI super object in all my libs

So this will solve for libs elegantly.

Very nice idea!

Any thoughts on how this will impact performance?

Code Igniters limitation of the CI super object is one of the things that seem to give it such a speed advantage, I am sure that over-use of importing it will slow down apps somewhat. But never to the extent of Cake I am sure?

I would love to hear if anyone has any performance benchmarks of cases invoking the Super Object and not… Memory usage would also be an issue I am sure..

Is it work on PHP 4?

I havn’t run any benchmarks on this approach, but if you plan on using this many times in a single helper function, then I would recomend just assigning the CI super object to a variable, as the overhead of making multiple calls would probably impact performance, although I’d imagine it would only make a nticable difference if you did it many, many times.

@Lima: Although the function itself would work in PHP4, the example of doing CI()->something() wouldn’t, as method chaining only works in PHP5+

If you want to use this under PHP4 or worried about performance from multiple calls to it (I agree with Dam1an that this would only happen if you used it ALOT) you can do it like below. This really doesn’t do anything above the normal get_instance besides make your code look prettier and save you from having to check if it exists all the time.