joomla: extend publish method through the controller - joomla2.5

Question

I think my approach may be off, but this seems like a common need, so i'm hoping i'm not too far off. Any input is appreciated. When the 'publish/unpublish' button is clicked, i'd like to read 'getTask()' and take my own actions, after the core's 'publish' method completes. Here's where I start:
In the controller, in my own 'publish' method i call parent::publish. So far no problem. Then I want to read getTask and pass it to the model function.
CONTROLLER_CLASS extends jCONTROLLER_ADMIN
public function publish()
{
parent::publish();
$model = $this->getModel();
$myPublish = $this->getTask();
$model->modelVariable = $myPublish;
//or
$model->doCustomPublishWork();
}

Answer 1

This seemed to work out pretty well.
public function publish()
{
$publishAffliate = $this->getTask();
$cid = JRequest::getVar('cid');//affiliates DB record ID.
$fileName = "C:\wamp\bin\apache\apache2.4.2\conf\affilatesTest.txt";
$fHandle = fopen($fileName, 'a');
switch($publishAffliate)
{
case 'publish':
fwrite($fHandle, "\npublished site ID = ". $cid[0]);
break;
case 'unpublish':
fwrite($fHandle, "\nunpublished site ID = ". $cid[0]);
break;
}
parent::publish();
}