Article ID: 254742 - Last Review: June 23, 2005 - Revision: 3.2

HOW TO: Use a Generic Collection to Parse HTTP Form Data with ASP

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This article was previously published under Q254742
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SUMMARY

This step-by-step article describes how to parse form data easily when you use Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) by using a generic collection instead of by explicitly defining the ASP collection for GET or POST requests.

When you use ASP to process data that is entered on a Web page through a form, two different collections are used depending on which HTTP method is specified in the form declaration:
  • GET uses the Request.QueryString collection.
  • POST uses the Request.Form collection.
This article describes how to process form data regardless of which HTTP method is used on the form.

NOTE: You may receive an error message if you copy the examples directly from this article to Microsoft FrontPage. The angle brackets (< and >) may appear as escaped HTML code (< and >). To work around this behavior, paste the script in a blank Notepad document, and then copy it from Notepad before you paste it in FrontPage.

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Create the Sample Pages

The following steps describe how to create a sample HTML page with two Web forms (one that uses the GET method and one that uses the POST method), and how to create a sample ASP page that processes the form by using either method.
  1. Save the following HTML code as Getdata.htm in the root folder of an IIS Web site:
    <html>
<body>
POST <form action="showdata.asp" method="POST">
<input type="text" name="txtData">
<input type="submit">
</form>
<br>
GET <form action="showdata.asp" method="GET">
<input type="text" name="txtData">
<input type="submit">
</form>
</body>
<html>
  2. Save the following ASP code as Showdata.asp in the root folder of an IIS Web site:
    <% @language="vbscript" %>
<html>
<body>
<%
   ' Declare a variable for the generic collection.
   Dim objRequest
   ' Determine the HTTP method used.
   If UCase(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_METHOD")) = "GET" Then
      ' Use the QUERYSTRING collection with GET requests
      Set objRequest = Request.QueryString
   Else
      ' Use the FORM collection with POST requests.
      Set objRequest = Request.Form   End If
   ' Escape and output the form data. 
   Response.Write Server.HTMLEncode(objRequest("txtData"))   
%>
</body>
<html>
When you open Getdata.htm by using HTTP (that is, by using an address such as http://localhost/getdata.htm), you may use either form to view the form results.

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REFERENCES

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
300104  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300104/EN-US/ ) HOW TO: Pass Form Data from One Page To Another by Using GET and POST in Active Server Pages
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APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Active Server Pages 4.0
  • Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0
  • Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0
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Keywords: 
kbhowto kbhowtomaster KB254742
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