php - What does $this actually mean> Codeigniter

Question

Silly question I know,

From all the tutorials they do not explain why they use $this.

Is $this like an object from a base class in Codeigniter?

Any explanation would be welcomed! :)

Thanks

Answer 1

To actually answer your question, $this actually represents the singleton Codeigniter instance (which is actually the controller object).

For example when you load libraries/models, you're attaching them to this instance so you can reference them as a property of this instance.

Another way to get this instance in codeigniter is the get_instance() function that you use when building portable libraries.