[Solved] Issues accessing method in an advanced module from helper function.

marcinkonys · March 2018

I have created an advanced module whose main purpose is to call a 3rd party API and persist a bunch of returned values into the database. When users view them, I'd like to every so often refresh the values on-the-fly.

I added a function to the advanced module's helper functions file. It is added to Twig's "allowed_functions" list and so people can type `{show_ads()}` on a page and it should display the ads list. The function looks roughly as follows:


if (!function_exists('show_ads')) {
	function show_ads()
	{
		$CI = &get_instance();

		// Refresh if needed
		$CI->fuel->my_advanced_module->refresh_cache();

		// Load ads for display
		...
        }
}

To ensure that the 3rd party is not called every time someone views a page, I'd like to keep track of the last time a refresh occurred in a FUEL Site Variable.


class Fuel_my_advanced_module extends Fuel_advanced_module
{

        // ...

	public function __construct($params = array())
	{
		parent:GDN__construct();
		$this->initialize($params);
		$this->fuel->load_model('fuel_sitevariables');
	}

        function refresh_cache($force = FALSE)
	{
                // Call 3rd party, refresh cache..
                // Update site variable
                $existing = $this->fuel_sitevariables_model->find_one(array(
			'name' => 'last_refresh',
			'active' => 'yes'
		));
		if (empty($existing)) {
			$existing = $this->fuel->sitevars->create();
			$existing->name = 'last_refresh';
		}
		$existing->value = datetime_now();
		$existing->save();
        }
}

`Fuel_sitevariables_model` extends `MY_Model` so it should have access to `find_one`. However upon invoking `$this->fuel_sitevariables_model->find_one` I end up in https://github.com/daylightstudio/FUEL-CMS/blob/master/fuel/modules/fuel/libraries/Fuel_modules.php#L1136 The `find` method does things differently to `find_one` and I do not get the desired functionality.

What am I doing wrong? I haven't put code in a class that extends `Fuel_advanced_module` before so this might be something trivial.

Thank you for the help.

marcinkonys · March 2018

Been battling this since yesterday evening. Just started a thread here and then solved the issue!

I basically just replaced

$this->fuel_sitevariables_model->find_one

with

$this->CI->fuel_sitevariables_model->find_one

Interesting how that works. Usually when I want to access a model, I can load it using `$this->load->model('my_model')` and then just use it as `$this->my_model->find_one`. Are advanced modules way different in that regard?

admin · March 2018

This is actually a fundamental part of how CodeIgniter works. "$this" actually refers to the Controller object which is used to load resources etc. If you want to reference that object from within a different context, you must do something like the following:
$CI =& get_instance();
OR the FUEL specific function that returns that reference:
CI()
FUEL's base model and libraries provide this reference for you through the CI property (which you discovered). Additionally, the fuel/application/views/_variables/global.php file which is used to inject global variables for view files has a $CI variable.

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[Solved] Issues accessing method in an advanced module from helper function.

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