Codeigniter 3 Model best practices

The database library in CI will return query results as objects by default:

PHP Code:

$this->db
->select('name,email')
->from('users')
->where('deleted_at', 0)
->order_by('name', 'ASC');
$query = $this->db->get();
return $query->result(); 


Now your model returns the records as an array of objects.
If you prefer an array of arrays, then do this:

PHP Code:

return $query->result_array();