Symfony2 - set an entity so its properties are "read only" - symfony

Question

We're using Symfony 2.3 and Doctrine to manage entities.
Suppose we've an entity called "Task" which a user can create as usual using the Symfony form builder and can persist using Doctrine. The "Task" might be an instruction to send some emails on a certain date, for example. Suppose the "Task" has a property called "status". "Tasks" that have been created correctly might have a status of "Ready".
A cron job periodically calls a symfony Custom Command to check if there are any "Tasks" that need processing (i.e. have a status of "Ready") and if it finds any, it performs some action and then updates the entity to have a status of "Completed".
Once a Task has been processed and its status has been set to be "Completed", is there any way of making the entity effectively "read only"? By this, I mean that a user could still see details of the Task, but they would not be able to change of its properties using a form? Bear in mind that the user might browse to the "edit" form for a particular Task, and whilst they are reading the details, the cron job might process the task and update the "status" property of the Task - the user might then submit the form without knowing that the Task has already been processed, and the form handler could attempt to persist the entity, possibly setting the "status" back to be "Ready" - thereby ensuring that the same task gets processed again the next time the cron job runs.
If, however, the Task was made read-only when its status gets set to be "Completed", the form submission would have no effect.

Answer 1

You should do this in your CRUD. Upon calling the "editAction" you must check the status on the entity. If it is "Completed" then you wouldn't display the edit form, but rather redirect the user to the "showAction"
For example:
/**
* Displays a form to edit an existing Task entity.
*
* #Route("/{id}/edit", name="task_edit")
* #Method("GET")
* #Template()
*/
public function editAction($id)
{
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$entity = $em->getRepository('AcmeTaskBundle:Task')->find($id);
if($entity->isCompleted())
return $this->forward('AcmeTaskBundle:Task:show', array('id' => $id ));
//Else finish edit action
}
/**
* Finds and displays a Task entity.
*
* #Route("/{id}", name="task_show")
* #Method("GET")
* #Template()
*/
public function showAction($id) {
...
}
Additionally, you can do the same thing in your update Action once you have checked the validity of the form. Just in case they have the edit form open right before the cron is run.
/**
* Edits an existing Task entity.
*
* #Route("/{id}", name="task_update")
* #Method("PUT")
* #Template("AcmeTaskBundle:Task:edit.html.twig")
*/
public function updateAction(Request $request, $id)
{
$em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
$entity = $em->getRepository('AcmeTaskBundle:Task')->find($id);
if (!$entity) {
throw $this->createNotFoundException('Unable to find Task entity.');
}
if($entity->isCompleted())
//Redirect Again. Note that this happens BEFORE the flush() which is when the entity is persisted to the db
$deleteForm = $this->createDeleteForm($id);
$editForm = $this->createEditForm($entity);
$editForm->handleRequest($request);
if ($editForm->isValid()) {
$em->flush();
return $this->redirect($this->generateUrl('administration_product_edit', array('id' => $id)));
}
...
}
Furthermore, if the Task is completed, they you should probably remove the "Edit option" from the showAction user interface all together. That would mean, in your twig template you check if the entity is completed BEFORE rendering the "Edit button"