Collecting data submitted by users

You can use web pages to gather information from users, store that information in the server’s memory, then use the information to create a dynamic response based on the user’s input. The most common tools for gathering information are HTML forms and hypertext link selections.

HTML forms let you gather information from users and store it in the server’s memory. An HTML form can send the information either as form parameters or as URL parameters. If you set the form’s method attribute to POST, the browser includes the form’s values in the body of the message sent to the server. If you set the form’s method attribute to GET, the browser appends the form values to the URL specified in the action attribute and sends the information to the server.

Hypertext links also let you gather information from users and store it in the server’s memory. You specify a value (or values) to be submitted when a user clicks a link--a preference, for example--by appending the value to the URL specified in the anchor tag. When a user clicks the link, the browser sends the URL and the appended value to the server.

This section describes how to create form and URL parameters for use in web applications.

This section covers the following topics:

• Form parameters
• URL parameters
• Creating URL parameters using HTML links
• Retrieving form and URL parameters