Problem using ActiveRecord Class from Wiki

[eluser]mambe churchill nanje[/eluser]
Hello can someone help me out here with this ActiveRecord
http://codeigniter.com/wiki/ActiveRecord_Class/ class usage,

here is a link to a site am working on, a simple cms I built has this news section

http://www.mpyraa.org/en/cms/newscontroller/

the page works well in localhost but on the server like you must have observed it says

A Database Error Occurred

Error Number: 1054

Unknown column 'news.*' in 'field list'

SELECT `news`.`*` FROM (`news`) ORDER BY `id` desc LIMIT 6

The code that runs the controller is as follow:

Code:

<?php
/**
* Generic News controller for all afrovisiongroup.com 50k sites that need news implementation
* AfroVisioN News class
*
* @package        CodeIgniter
* @subpackage    Controllers
* @category    Controllers
* @author        Mambe Churchill
* @version        1.0
*/

class newscontroller extends Controller{
    //contstructor
    function newscontroller(){
        parent::Controller();
        $news = & $this->load->model('news');
        $this->load->helper(array('text','typography'));
    }
    //the news index function
    function index(){
        $this->showArticles();
    }
    //show articles function that shows all the articles
    function showArticles($offset=0){
        $this->load->library('pagination');
        $perpage=6;
        $data['offset']=$offset;
        $data['perpage']=$perpage;
        $data['articles']=$this->news->ordering('id','desc')->find_and_limit_by($perpage,$offset);
        $this->load->view('news/home_tpl',$data);
    }
    //create a function that shows a single article
    function showArticle($id,$seo=""){
        $data['article']=$this->news->find($id);
        $this->load->view('news/article_tpl',$data);
    }
}
?>

can someone tell me why this

Code:

$this->news->ordering('id','desc')->find_and_limit_by($perpage,$offset);

works on my localhost and not on the server though both are running php 5 ??

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
Sounds more to me like an issue with Database versions than PHP versions.

[eluser]xwero[/eluser]
the load->model method doesn't return an object so you your news variable can't be used to query the database.
I don't know why it works on your localhost but it's a bad construction because CI appends an object to the controller with the name news because the model is named news.

The best solution is to create a method in your news model that gets a part of the table.

[eluser]mambe churchill nanje[/eluser]
well on localhost I use mysql 4 and on the server its mysql 5
but I dont think that could be the problem IMHO, I am not mysql guru

As for the Model not returning and object I dont think it changes anything, but BTW this is a Model that extends activerecords class in the wiki, check my model below

Code:

<?php
    class news extends ActiveRecord{
        function __construct(){
            parent::ActiveRecord();
                $this->_class_name=strtolower(get_class($this));
                $this->_table=$this->_class_name;
                $this->_columns=$this->discover_table_columns();
        }
    }
?>

and in the wiki page I posted earlier for this active record class they actually put $news = &$this->load->model('news') style of code then later you reference $news->delete() or soo
But I wonder why its not working, any ActiveRecord Guru ?? I am checking active record on kohana and I might port the app to Kohana and then use the active record there, but I want it to work in CI because its already done
please any help guys ??

[eluser]xwero[/eluser]
I checked out the Active record class and is seems to be an ORM class. i think you better use a more mature ORM.

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
I think the problem is that you are using 'news.*' in your query, and I'm not sure if MySQL 4 supports select calls in this fashion. My suggestion would be to run that SQL statement at the MySQL CLI if you can, and see what it says.

[eluser]mambe churchill nanje[/eluser]
well @xwero can you please point me to a more mature ORM class ??

@TheFuzzyOne, localhost I am using mysql 4 and the query "news.*" worked just fine, on the server its mysql 5 and it fails.
Also the sql gets generated by the ORM class, soo I dont have the SQL written to take and test someone. Could that be the issue

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
I'm going to just suggest that you try a new library as xwero suggested. I can't vouch for it as I've never used it, and I can't think of any other possible solutions.

[eluser]mambe churchill nanje[/eluser]
tomorrow I will definitely port the codes to kohana and use their ORM instead or maybe take the Kohana ORM and use in codeigniter
thanks guys

[eluser]mambe churchill nanje[/eluser]
well I managed to tweak the ORM class from the wiki to do just what I needed it. normally the way I use it now, I deactivated the use of HAS_MANY and all the other relationship related ORM.
I adjusted the code from this

Code:

/**
     * _compile
     *
     * This function compiles a list of fields to select.
     *
     * @author    Anton Muraviev
     * @access    private
     * @return    void
     */
    function _compile ()
    {
        $this->_select[] = $this->_table . '.*';
        $this->db->select(implode(',',$this->_select));
    }

to this

Code:

/**
     * _compile
     *
     * This function compiles a list of fields to select.
     *
     * @author    Anton Muraviev
     * @access    private
     * @return    void
     */
    function _compile ()
    {
        //$this->_select[] = $this->_table . '.*';
        $this->_select[] = '*';
        $this->db->select(implode(',',$this->_select));
    }

but anything query that has to do with relationship like fetch_related will not compile the right way because it will involve two tables, but it works for me and how I need it now. when next I upgrade I will use the ORM in Kohana. thanks y'all for your help