Php – Best method of including views within views in CodeIgniter

codeigniterPHPtemplates

I'm starting a large codeigniter project and would like to try to create some reusable 'mini' views for snippets of content like loops of data which may be displayed on different pages/controllers.

Is it better to call the views from within the main controller's view? If so, how? Or should I call the 'mini view' from the controller and thus pass the view's code to the main view?

Best Answer

Views within other views are called Nested views. There are two ways of including nested views in CodeIgniter:

1. Load a nested view inside the controller

Load the view in advance and pass to the other view. First put this in the controller:

<?php
// the "TRUE" argument tells it to return the content, rather than display it immediately
$data['menu'] = $this->load->view('menu', NULL, TRUE);
$this->load->view ('home', $data);
?>

Then put <?=$menu?> in your view at the point you want the menu to appear.

2. Load a view "from within" a view

First put this in the controller:

<?php
  $this->load->view('home');
?>

Then put this in the /application/views/home.php view:

<?php $this->view('menu'); ?>

<p>Other home content...</p>

About best method, I prefer the 1st method over 2nd one, because by using 1st method I don't have to mix up code, it is not like include php. Although indirectly both are same, the 1st method is clearer & cleaner than 2nd one!

Related Solutions

Php – Codeigniter: Best way to structure partial views

@Reinis answer probably hit the spot correctly for older versions of CI less than 2.0 however alot has changed since then, so I thought I'd answer this question with an up to date method of what I've done.

Most of it is similar to @Reinis method and also described here:http://codeigniter.com/wiki/MY_Controller_-_how_to_extend_the_CI_Controller

However here are the updates ive done:

Step 1: Create a MY_Controller.php file and store it in /application/core

Step 2: In your MY_Controller.php file put in the following contents:

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

class MY_Controller extends CI_Controller {

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

    function _output($content)
    {
        // Load the base template with output content available as $content
        $data['content'] = &$content;
        echo($this->load->view('base', $data, true));
    }

}

Step 3: Create a sample controller to base off of MY_Controller.php, in this case I will create a welcome.php controller inside of application/controllers/ with the following content:

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

class Welcome extends MY_Controller {

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

    public function index()
    {
        $this->load->view('welcome_message');
    }

}

Once you have these controllers set, do the following:

Step 4: Create a base view inside of /application/views and name the file base.php, the content of the file should be similar to this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<!--[if IE 7 ]><html lang="en" class="ie7"><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8 ]><html lang="en" class="ie8"><![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 8]><!--><html lang="en"><!--<![endif]-->
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8" />
        <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1" />
        <title></title> 
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>stylesheets/reset.css" media="screen" />
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="section_main">
            <div id="content">
                <?php echo $content; ?>
            </div>
        </div>
        <?php $this->load->view('shared/scripts.php'); ?>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

Step 5: Create another view in /application/views and name this view welcome_message.php, the content of this file will be:

<h1>Welcome</h1>

Once, all this is complete, you should see the following output:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<!--[if IE 7 ]><html lang="en" class="ie7"><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8 ]><html lang="en" class="ie8"><![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 8]><!--><html lang="en"><!--<![endif]-->
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8" />
        <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1" />
        <title></title> 
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://somedomain.local/stylesheets/reset.css" media="screen" />
    </head>
    <body>
        <!-- BEGIN: section_main -->
        <div id="section_main">
            <div id="content">
                <h1>Welcome</h1>
            </div>
        </div>
        <!-- END: section_main -->
        <script src="/path/to/js.js"></script>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

As you can see <h1>Welcome</h1> was put into the base template.

Resources:

Obviously @Reinis initial response
http://codeigniter.com/wiki/Extending_Controller_with_masterpage_template_funtionality

Hope this helps anyone else coming across this technique.

Php – CodeIgniter: Load controller within controller

Load it like this

$this->load->library('../controllers/instructor');

and call the following method:

$this->instructor->functioname()

This works for CodeIgniter 2.x.