[eluser]SethG[/eluser]
Have an MVC question for you.
Here's my scenario. I have a feature of an application called notes. I have a controller for notes and a model for notes. I have tried to build out notes as a feature that can be used related to multiple objects in the application and therefore would cross multiple controllers. For example I am creating notes for projects, notes for organizations, notes for people, ....
So this leads to my question, I want to be able to display a list of notes and to do so by calling a simple function with parameters that explain what notes to display (for example passing an organization id). The function will return the html code to display the results. Currently I have done this in the model. I have a model function that not only queries for the data but generates and returns the html for display. Is this the wrong approach? Should I create a notes helper which takes the query array and generates the html?
Hopefully this won't confuse but here is the code for what I have in the model ... again my question is should the code for formatting the results of a query for a feature such as this be better organized in a helper (or something else) instead of in the model?
Code:
function getNotesList($parentType = '', $parentID = '', $limit = '') {
/* First generate and execute query */
$this->db->orderby('notes_created desc, notes_id desc');
$this->db->limit($limit);
if ($parentID) $this->db->where('notes_parent_id', $parentID);
if ($parentType) $this->db->where('notes_parent_type', $parentType);
switch ($parentType) {
case 1:
$this->db->join('org', 'org.org_id = notes.notes_parent_id');
break;
case 2:
$this->db->join('contacts', 'contacts.ID = notes.notes_parent_id');
break;
case 3:
$this->db->join('jobs', 'jobs.job_id = notes.notes_parent_id');
break;
case 4:
$this->db->join('notes', 'notes.notes_id = notes.notes_parent_id');
break;
case 5:
$this->db->join('invoice', 'invoice.invoice_id = notes.notes_parent_id');
break;
}
$query = $this->db->get('notes');
/* Then if there are results format and return results for display */
if ($query->num_rows() > 0) {
$output = '<h2>Notes</h2><div id="notes">';
foreach ($query->result() as $note) {
$output .= '<div class="item">';
$output .= '<h3>'.anchor('notes/detail/'.$note->notes_id, 'Note by '.$note->posted_by.' on '.dateFormat($note->notes_created).'' ).'</h3>';
$output .= nl2br($note->notes);
$output .= '</div>';
}
$output .= '</div>';
} else {
$output = '<h2>Notes</h2><div id="notes"><h3>There are currently no notes to display</h3></div>';
}
return $output;
}
