Upgrade Controllers

What has been changed

  • Since namespaces have been added to CodeIgniter 4, the controllers must be changed to support namespaces.

  • Controllers don’t use constructors any more (to invoke CI “magic”) unless those are part of base controllers you make.

  • CI provides Request and Response objects for you to work with - more powerful than the CI3-way.

  • If you want a base controller (MY_Controller in CI3), make it where you like, e.g., BaseController extends Controller, and then have your controllers extend it

Upgrade Guide

  1. First, move all controller files to the folder app/Controllers.

  2. Add this line just after the opening php tag: namespace App\Controllers;

  3. Replace extends CI_Controller with extends BaseController.

If you use sub-directories in your controller structure, you have to change the namespace according to that.
For example, you have a version 3 controller located in application/controllers/users/auth/Register.php, the namespace has to be namespace App\Controllers\Users\Auth; and the controller path in the version 4 should look like this: app/Controllers/Users/Auth/Register.php. Make sure to have the first letters of the sub-directories as capitalized.
After that you have to insert a use statement below the namespace definition in order to extend the BaseController: use App\Controllers\BaseController;

Code Example

CodeIgniter Version 3.11

Path: application/controllers:

<?php

class Helloworld extends CI_Controller
{
    public function index($name)
    {
        echo "Hello $name! ";
    }
}

CodeIgniter Version 4.x

Path: app/Controllers:

<?php

namespace App\Controllers;

class Helloworld extends BaseController
{
    public function index($name)
    {
        echo 'Hello ' . esc($name) . '!';
    }
}