Filter Data On Frontend with Symfony Form Filter

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3765495/symfony-how-to-filter-data-on-the-frontend-like-in-the-backend

If you want to do it exactly like it is done on the backend, you can use the admin generator on frontend applications. A more general and customizable way would be to simply create list and filter actions and use Symfony's form filters. Here's a basic example for a model class "Article":

In an actions class:

class articleActions extends sfActions
{
  public function executeList(sfWebRequest $request)
  {
    $this->form = new ArticleFormFilter();
    $this->pager = new sfDoctrinePager('Article');
  }

  public function executeFilter(sfWebRequest $request)
  {
    $this->form = new ArticleFormFilter();
    $this->form->bind($request[$this->form->getName()]);
    if ($this->form->isValid())
    {
      $this->pager = new sfDoctrinePager('Article');
      $this->pager->setQuery($this->form->getQuery());
      $this->setTemplate('list');
    }
    //handle invalid form here
  }
}

In view, iterate throw pager like this:

foreach($pager->getResults() as $article)

Doctrine FormFilter's are fairly similar to Doctrine forms. Get started by configuring the form inside of FormFilter::configure();