Tom,
I am unable to understand your post cleary. Can you rephrase it.
Assume there are 2 jsps first.jsp and second.jsp.
<%= request.getHeader("referer") means the complete URL with which you invoked the first.jsp. Which means whatever appreared on the browser address bar to invoke first.jsp will be caught in second.jsp.
//case 1
Assume you invoked first.jsp from browser as
http://localhost/MISApp/Login/first.jsp?users=100 , and in your first.jsp you used method=post inside <form> to invoke second.jsp then we will get the WHOLE
http://localhost/MISApp/Login/first.jsp?users=100 for request.getHeader("referer").
//case 2
On the other hand if you would have used
http://localhost/MISApp/Login/first.jsp to invoke first.jsp you will get same
http://localhost/MISApp/Login/first.jsp in second.jsp
//case 3
If you would have method=post from zero.jsp (which calls first.jsp and zero.jsp had some values users=100) to invoke first.jsp itself, all those users=100 values will not be appended to browser's address bar since method=post is used. So in second.jsp we can't get those users=100 portion as part of referer URL.
Bottom line whatever appeared in browser's address bar to invoke first.jsp ONLY will be known as 'referer'
string at second.jsp.
I am still not sure if I understood your problem exactly as you have in mind.
Regarding your 'null' value, if we directly invoke second.jsp as
http://localhost/MISApp/Login/second.jsp we will get 'referer' value as null because there is no prior URL which is calling this second.jsp. Isn't? We deleted (cleaned) everything in the browser address bar and started afresh. So there is no prior page which is actually calling this second.jsp, because it is us(human) who is really calling.

I just assume this could be your case
Please reply so that we can continue.
regds
maha anna
[This message has been edited by maha anna (edited April 13, 2001).]