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I am using CodeIgniter

I have two tables -

Company int id , varchar name

Employee int id, varchar name , int company_id

I have a simple controller called Employees Controller 

<?php class Employees extends CI_Controller { public function index() { ---- ---- $data['employees'] = $selected_employees; $this->load->view('employees/index',$data); } }

This controller passes an array of Employees to the view . So inside my view , I can freely use employees[4].name , employees[3].id etc

Now If I want to show the name of the Company of the employees , it seems the only way is the Controller should pass another array with the name of the companies to the view . Is there any better way to achieve this - so that the controller doesnt have to explicitly have to send the data ?

For eg - say I want to access employees[4].company.name I have been spoilt by Rails . I used to take these for granted .

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  • how do you get that data? querying it right? why don't you do a join? Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 14:56
  • yeah . by querying it . Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 15:02
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    I've noticed that you are used to orm you can read more about that on this question stackoverflow.com/questions/3438198/which-orm-for-codeigniter, codeigniter doesn't support orm out of the box you must had some sorf of plugin if you don't want to that I can post a query with a join that would solve your problem Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 15:04
  • Sorry, do you still need the join or are you going to implement ORM Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 15:11
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    Take a look here: active record joins Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 15:25

2 Answers 2

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The best way to go about this is using a join statement in your SQL query. The SQL query would typically look something like the following:

SELECT * FROM Employee JOIN Company ON Employee.company_id = Company.id

However, CodeIgniter's active record class will help us to simplify this (see http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/database/active_record.html). In your model, you could write your query like so:

$this->db->select('*'); $this->db->from('Employee'); $this->db->join('Company', 'Employee.company_id = Company.id'); $query = $this->db->get();

You can tweak this to select the exact data that you want like you would any SQL query:

$this->db->select('Employee.id, Employee.name, Employee.company_id, Company.name AS company_name');

You can also add left, right, outer, inner, left outer, or right outer as a third parameter to the $this->db->join() function to allow for left joins, right joins, etc.

I would recommend using the Active Record class when possible in your CodeIgniter applications. It will help keep your queries clean, organized, and readable.

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Thanks RJ for the elaborate answer . Cheers !!
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Do a join on your model

public function get_ selected_employees(){ $this->db->select('Employee.*, Company.name as company_name'); $this->db->from('Employee'); $this->db->join('Company', 'Employee.company_id = Company.id'); return $this->db->get()->result(); }

To get the company name just do employees[4].company_name

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2 Comments

This is fine but there will be a conflict as both tables have name fields, just need to use $this->db->select('Employee.*, Company.name as company_name'); or similar.
Thanks Fabio. This is of great help . I hadnt thought of the possibility of using a join . Cheers !

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