Passing arguments and conditions to model in codeigniter - codeigniter

Question

I'm adding some models to a project, and was wondering if there is a "best practice" kind of approach to creating models:
Does it make sense to create a function for each specific query?
I was starting to do this, then had the idea of creating a generic function that I could pass parameters to. e.g:
Instead of
function getClients(){
return $this->db->query('SELECT client_id,last FROM Names ORDER BY id DESC');
}
function getClientNames($clid){
return $this->db->query('SELECT * FROM Names WHERE client_id = '.$clid);
}
function getClientName($nameID){
return $this->db->query('SELECT * FROM Names WHERE id ='.$nameID);
}
}
Something like
function getNameData($args,$cond){
if($cond==''){
$q=$this->db->query('SELECT '.$args.' FROM Names');
return $q;
}else{
$q=$this->db->query('SELECT '.$args.' FROM Names WHERE '.$cond);
return $q;
}
}
where I can pass the fields and conditions (if applicable) to the model. Is there a reason the latter example would be a bad idea?
Thanks!

Answer 1

I think it would actually be a better idea to use CI's Active Record to compile the queries.
An example:
function all_clients($select)
{
$this->db->select($select);
return $this->_get_client_data();
}
function single_client($select, $id = "")
{
// validate $id
$this->db->select($select);
$this->db->where("id", $id);
$this->db->limit(1);
return $this->_get_client_data();
}
// Only called by a method above once the query parameters have been set.
private function _get_client_data()
{
$q = $this->db->get("clients");
if($q->num_rows() > 0)
{
return $q->result_array();
}
return FALSE;
}
CI's Active Record makes all the stuff you were wanting to much easier. You can imagine setting up your public functions to conditionally set a number of options before actually calling $this->db->get().
I guess you would call _get_client_data a catch-all (?) and running all your data retrieval through a single method makes stuff like error handling much easier to maintain.
NOTE: Always remember to validate data like this. I know you do, but I'm just repeating it.