Question

In my JSP I do the following :

<!-- Bank manager's permissions -->

<!--more stuff goes here -->
<fieldset>
  <legend>To open a new account</legend> 
  <form action="blablabla">    
      <input type="hidden" name="hdField" value="myValue" />  // note I pass a "myValue" as string 
      <a href="employeeTransaction1">Press here to continue</a>  
  </form>
</fieldset>

And in my Servlet I grab the hidden input :

@WebServlet("/employeeTransaction1")
public class Employee1 extends HttpServlet {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;


    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException 
    {
        String getHiddenValue=request.getParameter("hdField");
        System.out.println("Hidden field Value :"+getHiddenValue);
        // forwards to the page employeeOpenNewAccount.jsp
        request.getRequestDispatcher("/WEB-INF/results/employeeOpenNewAccount.jsp").forward(request, response);
    }



}

And System.out.println produces : null at the Console

Why do I get a null of not the actual value is I pass ?

Regards

EDIT:

After changing to :

<fieldset>
  <legend>To open a new account</legend> 
  <form action="/employeeTransaction1" method="GET">
      <input type="hidden" name="hdField" value="myValue"/>
      <a href="employeeTransaction1">Press here to continue</a>  
  </form>
</fieldset>

A null is still presented at the console .

Answer 1

Using an href tag does not submit your form, i.e. it does not pass the parameters defined in the form to the request. You should use input type=”submit” or button tags instead. Also make sure the form action matches your @WebServlet definition.

<fieldset>
  <legend>To open a new account</legend> 
  <form action="/employeeTransaction1">    
      <input type="hidden" name="hdField" value="myValue" />  // note I pass a "myValue" as string 
      <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
  </form>
</fieldset>