[Zope] external methods question

[Sam Gendler]

I am really stumped on something.  I have a dtml document that is
processing the results of a post.  I need to write some code in an
external method that does some nested loops on 2 different queries
(something I wasn't able to do in dtml, as far as I can tell).  However,
when I call the external method from the dtml doc, I can't pass the
REQUEST to it.  Alternatively, if I call the dtml method from an url
(clicking directly on it), the dtml method receives the self and REQUEST
objects, but I am unable to pass those objects to any of the other
objects in the folder.  I don't want to have to write the entire dtml
page from the method, but I am unable to call a dtml document from
inside the method, since <dtml-var standard_html_header> and any other
dtml-var statements don't work without a 'self' object.  Does anyone
have a solution?

--sam