Symfony: $request->setParameter not accepting Object

Question

I am having trouble passing an associative array along with a redirect/forward, done in the action-file. Using Symfony 1.3.11.

Obviously there is some flaw, however this is my train of thought: Make a db query, parse the results, add them to an associative array (their ID as key) and redirect the user to the page from whence he came, along with the associative array.

$products = array();

foreach ($results as $res) {

  $product = $res->getProduct();
  $products[$product->getId()] = $product;
}

$this->getRequest()->setParameter("products", $products);
$this->forward("main", "index");

This is the returned error message:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class Product could not be converted to string in /var/www/perfecthomeweb/lib/vendor/symfony-1.3.11/lib/escaper/sfOutputEscaperObjectDecorator.class.php on line 98

Note: My initial preference was to use the

$this->redirect($request->getReferer());

in conjunction with the desired associative array, looking like this:

$this->redirect($request->getReferer() . "?persons=" . $persons);

This obviously did not work, and I am pretty sure my lack of knowledge of POST/GET is partially to blame. However, if this is doable using $request->getReferer(), that would be my clear preference, as it feels fluid and dynamic.

Answer 1

One solution to prevent the error is to create a string in this line already:

$products[$product->getId()] = $product;

For example by provoking the error early:

$products[$product->getId()] = (string) $product;

You then can think about which string representation you want to put there. As I don't know, I can not suggest that. Probably you're looking for JSON?

$products[$product->getId()] = json_encode($product);