/text/shared/02/01170201.xhp Sun Microsystems, Inc.

submitting forms get method for form transmissions post method for form transmissions General

A form is a text document or spreadsheet with different form controls. If you create a form for a Web page, the user can enter data into it to send over the Internet. The data from the form controls of a form is transmitted to a server by specifying a URL and can be processed on the server. Name Specifies a name for the form. This name is used to identify the form in the Form Navigator. URL Specifies the URL to which the data of the completed form is to be transmitted. Frame Defines the target frame in which the loaded URL is to appear. Type of submission Specifies the method to transfer the completed form information. Using the "Get" method, the data of every control is transmitted as an environment variable. They are appended to the URL in the form "?Control1=Content1&Control2=Content2&..."; the character string is analyzed by a program on the recipient's server. Using the "Post" method, a document is created from the content of the form that is sent to the specified URL. Submission encoding Specifies the type for encoding the data transfer. Data transfer of control information When sending a form, all controls available in $[officename] are taken into consideration. The name of the control and the corresponding value, if available, are transmitted. Which values are transmitted in each case depends on the respective control. For text fields, the visible entries are transmitted; for list boxes, the selected entries are transmitted; for check boxes and option fields, the associated reference values are transmitted if these fields were activated. How this information is transmitted depends on the selected transfer method (Get or Post) and the coding (URL or Multipart). If the Get method and URL encoding are selected, for example, value pairs in the form <Name>=<Value> are sent. In addition to the controls that are recognized in HTML, $[officename] offers other controls. It should be noted that, for fields with a specific numerical format, the visible values are not transmitted but rather fixed default formats. The following table shows how the data of the $[officename]-specific controls is transmitted: Control Value Pair Numeric field, currency field A decimal separator is always displayed as a period. Date field The date format is sent in a fixed format (MM-DD-YYYY), regardless of the user's local settings. Time field The time format is sent in a fixed format (HH:MM:SS), regardless of the user's local settings. Pattern field The values of pattern fields are sent as text fields, that is, the value visible in the form is sent. Table control From the table control, the individual columns are always transmitted. The name of the control, the name of the column, and the value of the column are sent. Using the Get method with URL encoding, the transmission is done in the form <Name of the table control>.<Name of the column>=<Value>, for example, with the value being dependent on the column.