How to transfer data from JSP to servlet when submitting HTML form

Question

I have a JSP page with an HTML form:

<form action="SERVLET">
    <input type="text" name="name"/><br>        
    <input type="text" name="group"/>
    <input type="text" name="pass"/>
    <input type="submit" value="submit">            
</form>

How to obtain these data in a servlet and add them to database?

Answer 1

Create a class which extends HttpServlet and put @WebServlet annotation on it containing the desired URL the servlet should listen on.

@WebServlet("/yourServletURL")
public class YourServlet extends HttpServlet {}

And just let <form action> point to this URL. I would also recommend to use POST method for non-idempotent requests. You should make sure that you have specified the name attribute of the HTML form input fields (<input>, <select>, <textarea> and <button>). This represents the HTTP request parameter name. Finally, you also need to make sure that the input fields of interest are enclosed inside the desired form and thus not outside.

Here are some examples of various HTML form input fields:

<form action="${pageContext.request.contextPath}/yourServletURL" method="post">
    <p>Normal text field.        
    <input type="text" name="name" /></p>

    <p>Secret text field.        
    <input type="password" name="pass" /></p>

    <p>Single-selection radiobuttons.        
    <input type="radio" name="gender" value="M" /> Male
    <input type="radio" name="gender" value="F" /> Female</p>

    <p>Single-selection checkbox.
    <input type="checkbox" name="agree" /> Agree?</p>

    <p>Multi-selection checkboxes.
    <input type="checkbox" name="role" value="USER" /> User
    <input type="checkbox" name="role" value="ADMIN" /> Admin</p>

    <p>Single-selection dropdown.
    <select name="countryCode">
        <option value="NL">Netherlands</option>
        <option value="US">United States</option>
    </select></p>

    <p>Multi-selection listbox.
    <select name="animalId" multiple="true" size="2">
        <option value="1">Cat</option>
        <option value="2">Dog</option>
    </select></p>

    <p>Text area.
    <textarea name="message"></textarea></p>

    <p>Submit button.
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit" /></p>
</form>

Create a doPost() method in your servlet which grabs the submitted input values as request parameters keyed by the input field's name (not id!). You can use request.getParameter() to get submitted value from single-value fields and request.getParameterValues() to get submitted values from multi-value fields.

@Override
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
    String name = request.getParameter("name");
    String pass = request.getParameter("pass");
    String gender = request.getParameter("gender");
    boolean agree = request.getParameter("agree") != null;
    String[] roles = request.getParameterValues("role");
    String countryCode = request.getParameter("countryCode");
    String[] animalIds = request.getParameterValues("animalId");
    String message = request.getParameter("message");
    boolean submitButtonPressed = request.getParameter("submit") != null;
    // ...
}

Do if necessary some validation and finally persist it in the DB the usual JDBC/DAO way.

User user = new User(name, pass, roles);
userDAO.save(user);

See also:

• HTML beginner tutorial
• Our Servlets wiki page
• doGet and doPost in Servlets
• How do I call a specific Java method on click/submit event of specific button in JSP?
• How perform validation and display error message in same form in JSP?
• How can I retain HTML form field values in JSP after submitting form to Servlet?
• How to upload files to server using JSP/Servlet?
• Show JDBC ResultSet in HTML in JSP page using MVC and DAO pattern
• Servlet returns "HTTP Status 404 The requested resource (/servlet) is not available"