Ci4 Base controller vs Controller

My apologies for the ambiguous title, I really dont know how to explain my confusion.

I thought i was getting somewhere but now im just more lost.
I need to have the form helper available globally, I read around and found that i can add it within my base controller which i did like this:

Code:

public function initController(RequestInterface $request, ResponseInterface $response, LoggerInterface $logger)
    {
        // Do Not Edit This Line
        parent::initController($request, $response, $logger);

        // Preload any models, libraries, etc, here.
        helper('form');

        // E.g.: $this->session = \Config\Services::session();
        $this->session = \Config\Services::session();
    }

Moving along my application i then needed to start saving values to the database and unlike Ci3 where you could use $this->input->post('name'), i tried using $something = $request->getVar('foo');

But this resulted in the error "Undefined variable $request".

I read the documentation and it says:

An instance of the request class already populated for you if the current class is a descendant of

Code:

CodeIgniter\Controller

and can be accessed as a class property:

So I changed my controller to extend Controller like this:

Code:

use App\Models\Admin\AccessModel;
use CodeIgniter\Controller;
class Access extends Controller
{

I still get this error: ErrorException Undefined variable $request and  helper('form') is not available.

If i add this code to my method then Im able to use $something = $request->getVar('foo');

Code:

$request = \Config\Services::request();

 But do I really need to use this everywhere, i feel like it is so much more work that autoloading the database as is Ci3?

Im struggling so much migrating to Ci4 and i think it all goes around the core functionality being available from anywhere in the application.

Please give me some advise.

$request is a property of the Controller class, so you need to access it with $this->request like any other class property:

PHP Code:

$foo = $this->request->getPost('foo'); 


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Your BaseController should be:

PHP Code:

<?php
...

class BaseController extends Controller
{
    ...

    /**
    * An array of helpers to be loaded automatically upon
    * class instantiation. These helpers will be available
    * to all other controllers that extend BaseController.
    *
    * @var array
    */
    protected $helpers = ['form'];

    ....
} 


And your controllers must extend BaseController.

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CI4 make thing simple, don't need to extend controller or make variable available globally. since most of its already provided by system already. (except some helper).

Helper maybe good but i think better use it when are needed rather than make it available globally.