PHP and Codeigniter - How do you check if a model exists and/or not throw an error?

Question

Example #1

bschaeffer'sanswer to this question - in his last example:

$this->load->model('table');
$data = $this->table->some_func();
$this->load->view('view', $data);

How do you handle this when 'table' doesn't exist?

---

Example #2

    try {
        $this->load->model('serve_' . $model_name, 'my_model');
        $this->my_model->my_fcn($prams);

        // Model Exists

    } catch (Exception $e) {
        // Model does NOT Exist
    }

But still after running this (obvously the model doesn't exist - but sometimes will) it fails with the following error:

An Error Was Encountered

Unable to locate the model you have specified: serve_forms

---

I am getting this function call by:

1) Getting some JSON:

"model_1:{"function_name:{"pram_1":"1", "pram_2":"1"}}

2) And turning it into the function call:

$this->load->model('serve_' . "model_1", 'my_model');

3) Where I call:

$this->my_model->function_name(pram_1=1, pram_2=1);

---

SOLUTION

The problem lies in the fact that CodeIgniter's show_error(...) function displays the error then exit; ... Not cool ... So I overrode: model(...) -> my_model(..) (you'll get errors if you just override it) and removed the show_error(...) because for some reason you can't override it - weird for Codeigniter). Then in my_model(...) made it throw an Exception

My personal opinion: the calling function should return show_error("message"); where show_error returns FALSE --- that or you could take out the exit; - and make show_error(...) overridable

Answer 1

You can see if the file exists in the models folder.

$model = 'my_model';
if(file_exists(APPPATH."models/$model.php")){
   $this->load->model($model);
   $this->my_model->my_fcn($prams);
}
else{
  // model doesn't exist
}