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admin41a16852006-09-26 18:17:19 +0000[diff] [blame]36<td><h1>Code Igniter User Guide Version 1.5.0</h1></td>
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000[diff] [blame]37<td id="breadcrumb_right"><a href="../toc.html">Full Table of Contents</a></td>
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48<a href="http://www.codeigniter.com/">Code Igniter Home</a> &nbsp;&#8250;&nbsp;
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50What is Code Igniter?
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62
63<h1>Code Igniter at a Glance</h1>
64
65
66<h2>Code Igniter is an Application Framework</h2>
67
68<p>Code Igniter is a toolkit for people who build web application using PHP. Its goal is to enable you to develop projects must faster than you could if you were writing code
69from scratch, by providing a rich set of libraries for commonly needed tasks, as well as a simple interface and
70logical structure to access these libraries. Code Igniter lets you creatively focus on your project by
71minimizing the amount of code needed for a given task.</p>
72
73<h2>Code Igniter is Free</h2>
74<p>Code Igniter is licensed under an Apache/BSD-style open source license so you can use it however you please.
75For more information please read the <a href="../license.html">license agreement</a>.</p>
76
77
78<h2>Code Igniter Runs on PHP 4</h2>
79<p>Code Igniter is written to be compatible with PHP 4. Although we would have loved to take advantage of the better object handling
80in PHP 5 since it would have simplified some things we had to find creative solutions for (looking your way, multiple inheritance),
81at the time of this writing PHP 5 is not in widespread use, which means we would be alienating most of our
82potential audience. Major OS vendors like RedHat have yet to support PHP 5, and they are unlikely to do so until 2007, so
83we felt that it did not serve the best interests of the PHP community to write Code Igniter in PHP 5.</p>
84
85<p>Note: Code Igniter will run on PHP 5. It simply does not take advantage of any native features that are only available in that version.</p>
86
87<h2>Code Igniter is Light Weight</h2>
88<p>Truly light weight. The core system requires only a few very small libraries. This is in stark contrast to many frameworks that require significantly more resources.
89Additional libraries are loaded dynamically upon request, based on your needs for a given process, so the base system
90is very lean and quite fast.
91</p>
92
admin25f6fca2006-09-23 01:23:14 +0000[diff] [blame]93<h2>Code Igniter is Fast</h2>
94<p>Really fast. We challenge you to find a framework that has better performance the Code Igniter.</p>
95
96
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000[diff] [blame]97<h2>Code Igniter Uses M-V-C</h2>
98<p>Code Igniter uses the Model-View-Controller approach, which allows great separation between logic and presentation.
99This is particularly good for projects in which designers are working with your template files, as the code these file contain will be minimized. We describe MVC in more detail on its own page.</p>
100
101<h2>Code Igniter Generates Clean URLs</h2>
102<p>The URLs generated by Code Igniter are clean and search-engine friendly. Rather than using the standard "query string"
103approach to URLs that is synonymous with dynamic systems, Code Igniter uses a segment-based approach:</p>
104
105<code>www.your-site.com/<var>news</var>/<dfn>article</dfn>/<samp>345</samp></code>
106
107<p>Note: By default the index.php file is included in the URL but it can be removed using a simple .htaccess file.</p>
108
109<h2>Code Igniter Packs a Punch</h2>
110<p>Code Igniter comes with a very nice set of libraries that enable the most commonly needed web development tasks,
admin25f6fca2006-09-23 01:23:14 +0000[diff] [blame]111like accessing a database, sending email, validating form data, maintaining sessions, manipulating images, working with XML-RPC data and more.</p>
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000[diff] [blame]112
113<h2>Code Igniter is Extensible</h2>
114<p>The system can be easily extended through the use of plugins and helper files, or even through class extensions or standard includes.</p>
115
116<h2>Code Igniter Does Not Require a Template Engine</h2>
admin25f6fca2006-09-23 01:23:14 +0000[diff] [blame]117<p>Although Code Igniter <em>does</em> come with a simple template parser that can be optionally used, it does not force you to use one.
118
119Template engines simply can not match the performance of native PHP, and the syntax that must be learned to use a template
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000[diff] [blame]120engine is usually only marginally easier than learning the basics of PHP. Consider this block of PHP code:</p>
121
122<code>&lt;ul><br />
123<br />
124&lt;?php foreach ($addressbook as $name):?><br />
125<br />
126&lt;li>&lt;?=$name?>&lt;/li><br />
127<br />
128&lt;?php endforeach; ?><br />
129<br />
130&lt;/ul></code>
131
132<p>Contrast this with the pseudo-code used by a template engine:</p>
133
134<code>&lt;ul><br />
135<br />
136{foreach from=$addressbook item="name"}<br />
137<br />
138&lt;li>{$name}&lt;/li><br />
139<br />
140{/foreach}<br />
141<br />
142&lt;/ul></code>
143
144<p>Yes, the template engine example is a bit cleaner, but it comes at the price of performance, as the pseudo-code must be converted
145back into PHP to run. Since one of our goals is <em>maximum performance</em>, we opted to not require the use of a template engine.</p>
146
adminb0dd10f2006-08-25 17:25:49 +0000[diff] [blame]147
148<h2>Code Igniter is Thoroughly Documented</h2>
149<p>Programmers love to code and hate to write documentation. We're no different, of course, but
150since documentation is <strong>as important</strong> as the code itself,
151we are committed to doing it. Our source code is extremely clean and well commented as well.</p>
152
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167<p><a href="http://www.codeigniter.com">Code Igniter</a> &nbsp;&middot;&nbsp; Copyright &#169; 2006 &nbsp;&middot;&nbsp; <a href="http://www.pmachine.com">pMachine, Inc.</a></p>
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