get_instance() in Codeigniter: Why assign it to a variable?

Question

In Codeigniter, get_instance() is a globally available function that returns the Controller super-object which contains all the currently loaded classes (it ret

Answer 1

Getting the result of get_instance() by reference just makes no sense since PHP5. Sadly this bad habit seems to be deep-rooted, so let's just deal with it.

For those interested, here's an über fast instance getter:

function CI()
{
    static $CI;
    isset($CI) || $CI = CI_Controller::get_instance();

    return $CI;
}

Note that the static variable wouldn't work if it were assigned by reference.

Also, you are forced not to get by reference the result of this CI(). Extra sugar :-)

Ah, and obviously you still have the (slight) cost of the function call. You still may want to use a variable instead of calling the function dozens of times.