Codeigniter and Mongodb library - do I need a model?

Question

I am trying my hand out with mongodb as a backend to my codeigniter application. I found and followed this example: http://www.surfinme.com/codeigniter-mongodb/

So I have the following structure:

+application\\ libraries\\ Mongo_db.php config\\ mongodb.php controllers\\ api.php

This is what my api.php file looks like so far:

<?php
defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Api extends CI_Controller {

        public function __construct()
        {
                parent::__construct();
                //loading  the mongodb library
                $this->load->library('mongo_db');
        }

        public function index()
        {
                $data['main_content'] = "dashboard";
                $this->load->view('includes/template',$data);
        }

        public function list_available()
        {

                //connect to mongodb collection (i.e., table) named as ‘surfinme_index’
                $collection = $this->mongo_db->db->selectCollection('testcollection');
                $result=$collection->find();
                foreach($result as $data)
                { 
                  var_dump($data);
                }
         }
   }

And the code seems to be working. It gets my data out of the database and dumps it to my browser. But this "feels" wrong becuase I don't have a model. Or should I be viewing the library as my model layer? I could just as easily create a file in the models folder called api_model and make the calls to the library from there. But is that overkill?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Depends on how tightly you want to adhere to MVC principals.

By creating a model for database operations you get several potential benefits. First, it provides a source that can be reused by multiple controllers. For example, there may be more than one controller that uses selectCollection . Second, if for some reason you decide to change databases you only have to modify the Models as opposed to every controller that makes calls to mongo_db .