Creating Core System Classes

Every time CodeIgniter runs there are several base classes that are initialized automatically as part of the core framework. It is possible, however, to swap any of the core system classes with your own version or even just extend the core versions.

Most users will never have any need to do this, but the option to replace or extend them does exist for those who would like to significantly alter the CodeIgniter core.

System Class List

The following is a list of the core system files that are invoked every time CodeIgniter runs:

• Config\Services
• CodeIgniter\Autoloader\Autoloader
• CodeIgniter\Config\DotEnv
• CodeIgniter\Controller
• CodeIgniter\Debug\Exceptions
• CodeIgniter\Debug\Timer
• CodeIgniter\Events\Events
• CodeIgniter\HTTP\CLIRequest (if launched from command line only)
• CodeIgniter\HTTP\IncomingRequest (if launched over HTTP)
• CodeIgniter\HTTP\Request
• CodeIgniter\HTTP\Response
• CodeIgniter\HTTP\Message
• CodeIgniter\HTTP\URI
• CodeIgniter\Log\Logger
• CodeIgniter\Log\Handlers\BaseHandler
• CodeIgniter\Log\Handlers\FileHandler
• CodeIgniter\Router\RouteCollection
• CodeIgniter\Router\Router
• CodeIgniter\Security\Security
• CodeIgniter\View\View
• CodeIgniter\View\Escaper

Replacing Core Classes

To use one of your own system classes instead of a default one, ensure that the Autoloader can find your class, that your new class extends the appropriate interface, and modify the appropriate Service to load your class in place of the core class.

For example, if you have a new App\Libraries\RouteCollection class that you would like to use in place of the core system class, you would create your class like this:

<?php namespace App\Libraries;

use CodeIgniter\Router\RouteCollectionInterface;

class RouteCollection implements RouteCollectionInterface
{

}

Then you would modify the routes service to load your class instead:

public static function routes(bool $getShared = true)
{
        if ($getShared)
        {
                return static::getSharedInstance('routes');
        }

        return new RouteCollection(static::locator(), config('Modules'));
}

Extending Core Classes

If all you need to is add some functionality to an existing library - perhaps add a method or two - then it’s overkill to recreate the entire library. In this case, it’s better to simply extend the class. Extending the class is nearly identical to replacing a class with one exception:

• The class declaration must extend the parent class.

For example, to extend the native RouteCollection class, you would declare your class with:

<?php namespace App\Libraries;

use CodeIgniter\Router\RouteCollection;

class RouteCollection extends RouteCollection
{

}

If you need to use a constructor in your class make sure you extend the parent constructor:

<?php namespace App\Libraries;

use CodeIgniter\Router\RouteCollection as BaseRouteCollection;

class RouteCollection extends BaseRouteCollection
{
     public function __construct()
     {
         parent::__construct();
     }
 }

Tip: Any functions in your class that are named identically to the methods in the parent class will be used instead of the native ones (this is known as “method overriding”). This allows you to substantially alter the CodeIgniter core.