What is CodeIgniter?
CodeIgniter is open source toolkit used for developing dynamic websites with PHP. It provides rich set of libraries that enable to perform development in a much faster way compared to the manual coding from scratch. You can also change the behavior of existing libraries with less effort and your whole framework would work accordingly. With CodeIgniter you can focus on the development of the project, reducing time in writing the codes.

MVC architecture
All coding frameworks have configured the MVC architecture and if in case it is not, then you can configure it easily. The absence of MVC may lead to unmanageable codes, especially when large coding is required. With MVC, you can keep the code separate and manageable – no matter how long the code you generate it. Many of the framework compels to follow rules using MVC but with CodeIgniter offers you a system to use MVC that makes sense for you preventing from unnecessary implementation.

Security
CodeIgniter permits to implement the necessary security as you require it for your app. The default features allow to set all global variables without depending on the PHPs register global directive. Cookie encryption, automatically escaping SQL queries and handling session data with a database can be enabled in CI.

Database Abstraction Layer
Mostly, all frameworks have a layer of the database abstraction and so do CodeIgniter. With this you can delete, update, create and insert without feeding the codes in SQL. Connect to multiple databases within one application MySQL, MS SQL, MySQLi, Oracle, Postgre, SQLite or ODBC.

Libraries and Helpers
CodeIgniter works with both PHP4 and 5 making it easy to work between the two environments. The defaults functions includes forms, file handling, arrays, strings, cookies and directories with which you can do coding at ease. Moreover, you get all tools in one framework at the libraries and helpers available in CodeIgniter. You can modify these or make your own library or helper with CodeIgniter.

Inbuilt Libraries in CodeIgniter-

  • ► Benchmarking Class
  • ► HTML Table Class
  • ► File Uploading Class
  • ► Email Class
  • ► Cart Class
  • ► Image Manipulation Class
  • ► FTP Class
  • ► Calendar Class
  • ► Encryption Class
  • ► Output Class
  • ► Loader Class
  • ► XML-RPC Class
  • ► User Agent Class
  • ► Typography Class
  • ► Template Parser Class
  • ► Zip Encoding Class
  • ► URI Class
  • ► Pagination Class
  • ► Language Class
  • ► Session Class
  • ► Input and Security Class
  • ► Config Class

Inbuilt Helpers in CodeIgniter–

  • ► Inflector Helper
  • ► Smiley Helper
  • ► Security Helper
  • ► Language Helper
  • ► String Helper
  • ► Text Helper
  • ► Number Helper
  • ► URL Helper
  • ► XML Helper
  • ► Typography Helper
  • ► Path Helper

EllisLabs CMS, is in rebuilding mode to use the framework. The purpose behind this is whatever libraries, helpers that you develop for CodeIgniter you can use it in the future with the help of this Expression Engine.

Using frameworks it would surely increase your efficiency with the help of inbuilt functionalities. It has high security features and community, supporting documentation, community forums and stack overflow.
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