Codeigniter 2.0 third_party folder

Question

What is this the third_party folder in codeigniter 2.0 and how to use that?

Answer 1

As John explained in his answer, a single-file library can be loaded by placing it in the libraries folder:

$this->load->library('my_app');

Multiple single-file libraries can be loaded similarly with an array:

$this->load->library(['email', 'table']);

However, if you have a folder full of classes to be loaded not related to CodeIgniter, you can still place them in the third_party folder, but do not use $this->load->add_package_path() (it expects a CI structure inside the new third_party package, i.e. with models, configs, helpers, etc.).

I leave an example, Stripe API has a lib folder and an init.php, so I did the following:

1. updated init.php references from dirname(__FILE__) . '/lib/ to dirname(__FILE__) . '/) and placed the file in the third_party/stripe folder together with all contents of the lib folder;
2. Create, for example, a libraries/Stripe.php;

3. This would be its constructor:

   public function __construct()
   {
     $this->CI =& get_instance();
     require_once(APPPATH.'third_party/stripe/init.php');
     \Stripe\Stripe::setApiKey($this->CI->config->item('stripe_key_secret'));
     if(ENVIRONMENT === 'development'){
       \Stripe\Stripe::setVerifySslCerts(false);
     }
   }
   

4. Add to it functions that invoke directly Stripe classes, simple e.g.:

   public static function create_customer($email, $token) {
     $stripe_result = FALSE;
     try {
       $stripe_result = \Stripe\Customer::create([
         'email' => $email,
         'description' => "Customer for $email",
         'source' => $token // obtained with Stripe.js
       ]);
     } catch(\Stripe\Error\Card $e) {
       return 'Error ' . $e->getHttpStatus() . ': '.
         $e->stripeCode .  ' -> '.
         var_export($e->getJsonBody()['error'], TRUE);
     } catch (Exception $e) {
       return 'Something else happened, completely unrelated to Stripe -> '.
         var_export($e, TRUE);
     }
     return $stripe_result;
   

5. load the library on one of your controllers and invoke the method:

   $this->load->library('stripe');
   Stripe::create_customer($someones_email, $someones_token); // you can use the result
   

Just also leaving the updated URL: CodeIgniter's Loader Class documentation.