How to create two parent controllers in Codeignite

Question

I want to create two parent controllers: one for admin and one for user site. They have to extend a regular Controller class but each of them has to do different things.

Answer 1

This is pretty easy. Do the following:

1. Go to the following directory: your_ci_app/application/core/ and create a php file called MY_Controller.php (this file will be where your top parent classes will reside)

2. Open MY_Controller.php and add your multiple classes, like so:

   class Admin_Parent extends CI_Controller {
       public function __construct() {
           parent::__construct();
       }
   
       public function test() {
           var_dump("from Admin_Parent");
       }
   }
   
   class User_Parent extends CI_Controller {
   
       public function __construct() {
           parent::__construct();
       }
   
       public function test(){
           var_dump("from User_Parent");
       }
   
   }
   

3. Create your children controllers under this directory your_ci_app/application/controllers/ . I will call it adminchild.php

4. Open adminchild.php and create your controller code, make sure to extend the name of the parent class, like so:

   class Adminchild extends Admin_Parent {
   
       function __construct() {
           parent::__construct();
       }
   
       function test() {
           parent::test();
       }
   
   }
   

Answer 2

I wrote up an article showing how you do this.

http://philsturgeon.co.uk/news/2010/02/CodeIgniter-Base-Classes-Keeping-it-DRY

You need to create an __autoload() function in your config.php or directly include the base controller above the class definition.