I am using Symfony 1.2.9 (with Propel ORM) to create a website. I have started using the admin generator to implement the admin functionality.

I have come accross a slight 'problem' however. My models are related (e.g. one table may have several 1:N relations and N:N relations). I have not found a way to address this satisfactorily yet. As a tactical solution (for list views), I have decided to simply show the parent object, and then add interactions to show the related objects.

I'll use a Blog model to illustrate this.

Here are the relationships for a blog model:

N:M relationship with Blogroll (models a blog roll) 1:N relationship with Blogpost (models a post submitted to a blog)

I had originally intended on displaying the (paged) blogpost list for a blog,, when it was selected, using AJAX, but I am struggling enough with the admin generator as it is, so I have shelved that idea - unless someone is kind enough to shed some light on how to do this.

Instead, what I am now doing (as a tactical/interim soln), is I have added interactions to the list view which allow a user to:

1. View a list of the blog roll for the blog on that row

2. View a list of the posts for the blog on that row

3. Add a post for the blog on tha row

In all of the above, I have written actions that will basically forward the request to the approriate action (admin generated). However, I need to pass some parameters (like the blog id etc), so that the correct blog roll or blog post list etc is returned.

I am sure there is a better way of doing what I want to do, but in case there isn't here are my questions:

1. How may I obtain the object that relates to a specific row (of the
   clicked link) in the list view (e.g. the blog object in this example)

2. Once I have the object, I may choose to extract various fields: id etc. How can I pass these arguments to the admin generated action ?

Regarding the second question, my guess is that this may be the way to do it (I may be wrong)

public function executeMyAddedBlogRollInteractionLink(sfWebRequest $request)
{
     // get the object *somehow* (I'm guessing this may work)
     $object = $this->getRoute()->getObject();

     // retrieve the required parameters from the object, and build a query string
     $query_str=$object->getId();

     //forward the request to the generated code (action to display blogroll list in this case)
     $this->forward('backendmodulename',"getblogrolllistaction?params=$query_string");
}

This feels like a bit of a hack, but I'm not sure how else to go about it. I'm also not to keen on sending params (which may include user_id etc via a GET, even a POST is not that much safer, since it is fairly sraightforward to see what requests a browser is making). if there is a better way than what I suggest above to implement this kind of administration that is required for objects with 1 or more M:N relationships, I will be very glad to hear the "recommended" way of going about it.

I remember reading about marking certain actions as internal. i.e. callable from only within the app. I wonder if that would be useful in this instance?