Symfony 2 Controller Action no return Response - function

Question

I have been some time without programing in Synfony and I have some doubts.
Is posible that and Action Controller return a variable (for example and integer) instead of a Response Object or Json Object.
What I need is call a function inside another function in a different Controller. If the 2 functions live in the same Controller it has no problem (like this):
class AController{
public function AAction(){
$var = $this->BAction(); //Do whatever I want with $var
return Response ("Hello");
}
public function BAction(){
return 34; //return an integer instead of a Response
}
}
THE PROBLEM IS when the BAction is in another Controller. If I use a forward, Symfony expect that BAction return a Response object or a Json array, but I only want to return a simple variale.
Is this posible?? Return a simple integer...
Thanks a lot!!

Answer 1

No a Action must return a Response Object. But if you have two controllers (that will say two different classes) then you could create a service.
app/config/config.yml
services:
app.my_ownservice:
class: AppBundle\Services\OwnService
arguments:
entityManager: "#doctrine.orm.entity_manager"
app/Services/OwnService.php
namespace AppBundle\Services;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager;
class OwnService {
/**
*
* #var EntityManager
*/
private $em;
public function __constructor(EntityManager $entityManager)
{
$this->em = $entityManager;
}
public function doSomething(){
// you could use the entitymanager here
return 'Okay i will do something.';
}
}
And from each controller (or whatever) you can do:
$myOwnService = $this->get('app.my_ownservice');
$text = $myOwnService->doSomething();
// echo $text;

Answer 2

A controller should never use another controllers action. Thats not the problem that Controllers solve. Symfony business logic structure is SOA based. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-oriented_architecture) Therefore for custom business logic you should always use either:
Services: http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/service_container.html
Events: http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/event_dispatcher/introduction.html