CodeIgniter and JS libraries

Question

Hi

So I'm a newbie at this sort of thing - I just started developing with CodeIgniter and I'm trying to integrate javascript libraries. However, I have my .htaccess set up so that all requests get /index.php/ tacked in front of it, which makes it difficult to include files. For CSS I just use a php include to get around this problem and have it inline, which is faster anyway. But this seems like a bad idea for javascript libraries.

Any thoughts? Should I just create a index.php/ folder and stick it in there?

Thanks!
Mala

Answer 1

I actually use a resource controller to bring in all of my external files:

 class Resources extends Controller
{
 public function __construct()
 {
  parent::__construct();
 }

 public function javascript()
 {
  $arr = func_get_args();
  if( sizeof( $arr ) == 0 )
  {
   show_404();
   return;
  }
  if( is_numeric( $arr[ sizeof( $arr ) - 1 ] ) )
  {
   array_pop( $arr );
  }
  $name = implode( "/", $arr );
  $this->load->view( "javascript", array( "importscript" => $name ) );
 }
 public function css()
 {
  $arr = func_get_args();
  if( sizeof( $arr ) == 0 )
  {
   show_404();
   return;
  }
  if( is_numeric( $arr[ sizeof( $arr ) - 1 ] ) )
  {
   array_pop( $arr );
  }
  $name = implode( "/", $arr );
  $this->load->view( "css", array( "importscript" => $name ) );
 }
 public function image()
 {
  $arr = func_get_args();
  if( sizeof( $arr ) == 0 )
  {
   show_404();
   return;
  }
  if( is_numeric( $arr[ sizeof( $arr ) - 1 ] ) )
  {
   array_pop( $arr ); 
   // if the last item is a number, that means it was 
   // automatically generated to prevent caching
  }
  $name = implode( "/", $arr );
  $this->load->view( "images", array( "importscript" => $name ) );
 }
}

The different views are all something like this:

$import = dirname( __FILE__ ) . "/javascript/$importscript";
if( !showjs( $import ) && is_dir( $import ) )
{
 if( !showjs( "$import/$importscript" ) )
 {
  show_404();
 }
}

function showjs( $imp )
{
 if( is_file( "$imp.js" ) )
 {
  header('Content-type: application/javascript');
  echo "/*----- Imported into PHP so JavaScript can all be dynamically declared -----*/\n\n";
  echo file_get_contents( "$imp.js" );
  return true;
 }
 elseif( is_file( "$imp.php" ) )
 {
  header('Content-type: application/javascript');
  echo "/*----- Imported into PHP so JavaScript can all be dynamically declared -----*/\n\n";
  include_once( "$imp.php" );
  return true;
 }
 return false;
}

As you can see, the controller passes the file name to the view. The view then sees if there is a js file or a php file associated with the importscript variable. If there is, it sets the headers and then displays the files.

Answer 2

You can avoid the rewrite rule by just adding a condition to it:

RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|scripts|styles|robots\.txt)

Then you can put all your scripts, images, etc., in your docroot.

See the Apache Rewrite docs for more info.

Answer 3

Hey.

If you are using mod_rewrite, just add a RewriteCond in front of your RewriteRule. For example:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.(css|js|jpe?g|png|gif)$
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/? index.php?ctrl=$1&event=$2 [L,QSA]

Answer 4

Maybe i'm missunderstanding something but why not just include javascript libraries with absolute urls

<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/javascript.js"></script>

Same with CSS

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/main.css">

if you start at the doc root using / then you won't have any problems finding files.