Unobtrusive XHR

Unobtrusive XHR provides a zero configuration hook for unobtrusively adding XmlHttpRequests to your site without the need to create new controllers or actions. All that is needed is the creation of additional views. This allows you to maintain accessibility standards, while offering advanced functionality.

This is achieved by overloading the view() function in the Loader class. If a request was made without XHR, the view is loaded as normal. If, however, the request is made using XHR the view is overloaded to an alternate view file.

In your controller you just call the view function as normal.

$this->load->view('action', $view_data);

If the request was made with XHR, the hook kicks in and the alternate view will be loaded instead. It'd be equivalent to manually calling the view below. The benefit is that this differentiation between XHR and normal requests is automagically handled for you globally on every method in every controller - wherever a view is loaded.

$this->load>view('action.json.php', $view_data);

If a different extension than json is required, it can optionally be configured in the file.

To use: Copy and Paste the code below and save it to ~/system/application/libraries/MY_Loader.php

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

/**
 * CodeIgniter MY_Loader Class
 *
 * @package       CodeIgniter
 * @subpackage    Libraries
 * @category      Libraries
 * @author        Daniel Ott
 * @version       0.1
 * @link          http://codeigniter.com/wiki/Unobtrusive_XHR/
 * @todo          Optional fourth parameter that would override this functionality
 *
 * In a default implementation of CodeIgniter, just drop this file in
 * ~/system/application/libraries/, and it will be completely ready to work.
 */

/**
 * We'll use one file extension globally. If someone has other needs they can
 * change this or build on the library.
 */
if (!defined('XHR_EXTENSION')) define('XHR_EXTENSION', 'json');


class MY_Loader extends CI_Loader {

    function MY_Loader() {
        parent::CI_Loader();
    
        /**
         * Set an internal variable to know if the current controller request
         * was made with XmlHttpRequest.
         * Found at: http://codeigniter.com/forums/viewthread/59450/#292979
         */
        $this->xhr = (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) && $_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH'] == "XMLHttpRequest");
    }

    /**
     *
     * This function has been modified in MY_Loader to automatically load the
     * JSON version of a view, if the request was made through XMLHTTPRequest.
     * Example $this->load->view('home/create_event') would originally load 
     * home/create_event.php, now it would open home/create_event.json.php
     *
     * @access   public
     * @param    string
     * @param    array
     * @param    bool
     * @return   void
     */
    function view($view, $vars = array(), $return = FALSE)
    {

        // Only overloading things that are requested with XmlHttpRequest
        if($this->xhr)
        {
            /**
             * Build the modified view's path in the most forgiving way. This
             * will create the correct path if the .php extension is included
             * or left out ouf the original call to $this->load->view()
             */
            $modified_view = pathinfo($view, PATHINFO_DIRNAME) . "/" . pathinfo($view, PATHINFO_FILENAME) . "." . XHR_EXTENSION . ".php";
        
            /**
             * Overloading the view will only take place if the new view file
             * actually exists. Haven't tested this extensively in the field,
             * may have to cut this part if there are performance hits.
             */
            if( file_exists($this->_ci_view_path . $modified_view) )
            {
                log_message('debug', 'My_Loader detected XHR and a corresponding JSON template. Now loading view: ' . $modified_view);
                $view = $modified_view;
            }
        }
    
        // Call as usual, the original or modified view.
        return parent::view($view, $vars, $return);
    }
}

/* End of file MY_Loader.php */
/* Location: ./system/application/libraries/My_Loader.php */