handling a parameter with multiple values

[benjamin muktesh]

Hi,

I have a form which can have multiple text fields with same name and it goes like this:

<td><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="quantity" VALUE="" SIZE="10" MAXLENGTH="150"></td>
<td><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="partNumber" VALUE="" SIZE="20" MAXLENGTH="150"></td>
<td><TEXTAREA NAME="partDescription" ROWS=5 COLS=25></TEXTAREA></td>
<td><TEXTAREA NAME="reasonForReturn" ROWS=5 COLS=25></TEXTAREA></td>

the above row can be repeated multiple times using javascript

i need to pass the parameter names to a servlet and do some processing.

if i do the following only one set of values is available to me

String qty[] = request.getParameterValues("quantity");
String number[] = request.getParameterValues("partNumber");
String partDesc[] = request.getParameterValues("partDescription");
String reasonReturn[] = request.getParameterValues("reasonForReturn");

can someone plese guide me how i can handle this.

Thanks
[ July 02, 2008: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[David O'Meara]

"benjamin",
Please check your private messages.
-DOM

[Amit Ghorpade]

Hi benjamin , welcome to Javaranch,
First things first, your name does not follow the Javaranch naming policy
please change it here.

And regarding your question, its obvious that you will get the last input values, if you loop the html code many times.


Hope this helps .
[ July 02, 2008: Message edited by: Amit Ghorpade ]

[sudhir nim]

Make sure that java script is adding the new text boxes in correct form
[ July 02, 2008: Message edited by: sudhir nim ]

[William Brogden]

I handle this kind of thing by creating the field names on the fly and adding a number. So you would have fields named pD1 with matching reason1 etc.. Without that you can never be sure which part description field goes with which reason field - the order of parameters in the request is NOT guaranteed.

Bill

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by muktesh benjamin:
if i do the following only one set of values is available to me

Please explain what you mean by this. If there are multiple instances of a named input in the same form, you should be getting an array of the values.

[benjamin muktesh]

That is what i expected.
but its not working, i just get the first set of data.

[Bear Bibeault]

"it's not working" isn't very useful.

Are you sure that the multiple input elements are being placed into the same form? Are you sure that the HTML constructs that you are creating are valid? Have you inspected the POST body to see if it contains all the values?

More info on how this is being handled on the client side may be required.

[benjamin muktesh]

Ill try to elaborate

Following is the chunk of form which will get repeated if there is more than one set of rows.
My javascript is giving the same name to the fields.
example if a i have 3 rows the field "quantity" should have three values and so on.

<td><INPUT TYPE = "hidden" name="returnItemId"/></td>
<td><input type="checkbox" name="item" /></td>
<td><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="quantity" VALUE="" SIZE="4" MAXLENGTH="4"/></td>
<td><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="partNumber" VALUE="" SIZE="18" MAXLENGTH="18"/></td>
<td><TEXTAREA NAME="partDescription" ROWS=3 COLS=40></TEXTAREA></td>
<td><TEXTAREA NAME="reasonForReturn" ROWS=3 COLS=40></TEXTAREA></td>

In my servlet i am trying to get the parameters like
String quantity[] = request.getParameterValues("quantity");
when i try to get all the values for "quantity" in a for loop like

for (int i = 0; i < quantity.length; i++) {
//do something
}

I just get one set of values.

I am lost right now. I am trying to add an id field to my table and see if i can handle it.

Thanks

[Bear Bibeault]

Are you sure that the multiple input elements are being placed into the same form? Are you sure that the HTML constructs that you are creating are valid? Have you inspected the POST body to see if it contains all the values?

[benjamin muktesh]

Are you sure that the multiple input elements are being placed into the same form? YES

Are you sure that the HTML constructs that you are creating are valid?YES


Have you inspected the POST body to see if it contains all the values? YES

[benjamin muktesh]

Actually i am doing some processing with iText in the servlet i suspect that i need to look into that aspect.
Thanks for your time anyways.