README

A focused set of base classes and helpers for building structured CRUD applications in CodeIgniter 4.
Designed to reduce repetition in models, entities, joins, form handling, and timezone-aware date workflows.

Contents

• BaseModel.php
• BaseEntity.php
• date_helper.php
• form_helper.php

BaseModel

Extends CodeIgniter\Model and adds higher-level utilities for relational CRUD workflows.

Key Features

• Automatic prefixing of primary/created/updated/deleted fields
• Option to derive $allowedFields from $validationRules
• columns() helper based on validation rules
• nextAutoIncrement() (MySQL information_schema lookup)
• Smart save() override (prevents empty PK from forcing update)
• syncOneToMany() for maintaining lookup tables
• Join utilities with automatic unique field aliasing
• Subquery helpers for selecting values from latest related rows

Join Workflow

joinModel() registers fields with unique aliases.
selectUnique() builds a collision-safe SELECT clause.

Example:

$rows = $userModel
    ->reset()
    ->joinModel('ProfileModel', 'profiles.user_id = users.id', 'left')
    ->selectUnique()
    ->findAll();

Supports aliasing and prefix mapping for nested joins.

Sync Lookup Tables

$model->syncOneToMany(
    'foos2bars',
    ['foo_id' => 1],
    'bar_id',
    [12, 13],
    [5, 13, 14]
);

Handles insert + delete diff automatically.

BaseEntity

Extends CodeIgniter\Entity\Entity and improves form and join handling.

Key Features

• fillNullEmpty() --- converts empty strings to NULL before fill
• Timezone helpers:
  • applyLocalTimezone()
  • applyServerTimezone()
• csvMap() --- converts GROUP_CONCAT CSV fields into structured objects/entities
• prefixMap() --- extracts prefixed join fields into sub-entities
• stripAliasPrefix() --- removes select alias prefixes
• getHtmlData() --- exports entity attributes as HTML data-* attributes

Example:

$image = $row->prefixMap('image_', \App\Entities\Image::class, true);

date_helper

Helpers for timezone-aware date handling using CodeIgniter\I18n\Time.

Functions:

• localDate($dateTime, $format = null, $timezone = null)
• serverDate($dateTime, $format = null, $timezone = null)

Supports returning either a Time object or formatted string.

Requires:

public string $localTimezone;
public string $appTimezone;

in Config/App.php.

form_helper

Improves CI form value binding for objects/entities.

Handles:

• NULL vs empty
• Boolean fields
• DateTime / Time objects
• Bracketed input names (user[email])
• Optional local timezone conversion

Key functions:

• set_value_from()
• set_checkbox_from()
• set_select_from()
• set_radio_from()
• set_textarea_from()

Example:

echo form_input('email', set_value_from('email', $user));

With date formatting:

echo form_input('starts_at', set_value_from('starts_at', $entity, '', true, [
    'localTimezone' => true,
    'format' => 'Y-m-d H:i:s',
]));

Installation

Drop the classes into an autoloaded namespace and register via PSR-4 in Config/Autoload.php.

Place helpers in app/Helpers/ and load with:

helper(['date', 'form']);

Notes

• Call reset() when using the unique join workflow before building a new query.
• Ensure syncOneToMany() receives specific WHERE conditions in $common_data.