codeigniter: where do entities go?

Question

I was wondering what should I do with my entities? For example, a class named Articles, with a few datamembers (name/title/date) and getters & setters. I could add these to my Articles datamember, but it's better practice to seperate those. So what do you think?

Thanks!

Answer 1

i usually do this:

1.- create my entity classes in /system/application/classes

class MyEntity {
}

2.- define a constant to point to that folder on /system/application/config/constants.php

define('CLASSES_DIR', APPPATH . "classes/");

3.- include the entities classes from the models:

require_once(CLASSES_DIR  . "MyEntity.php");

class MyModel extends Model {

   function test() {
      $entity = new MyEntity();
      $entity->doSomeStuff();
   }

}

That won't break your mvc structure, and keeps for entities classes separated. Hope that helps!

Answer 2

I liked @ilbesculpi's solution, but I customized it a bit using a namespace rather than using a constant and require_once. Here is my version:

1) Create my entity classes in /system/application/entities.

namespace MyApplication\Entities;

class ArticlesEntity
{
    function doSomeStuff()
    {
        // Your code here...
    }
}

2) Include my entity class in my model via a using statement.

use MyApplication\Entities\ArticlesEntity;

class ArticlesModel extends CI_Model
{
    function test() 
    {
      $entity = new ArticlesEntity();
      $ArticlesEntity->doSomeStuff();
    }
}

Answer 3

CodeIgniter models use the singleton pattern. You can create libraries or use $foo = new Some_Model if you like, remember that its all just PHP :)