19.6. The Client Request: Form Data
One of the main motivations for building Web pages dynamically is to base the result upon query data submitted by the user. This section shows you how to access that data.
If you've ever used a search engine, visited an on-line bookstore, tracked stocks on the Web, or asked a Web-based site for quotes on plane tickets, you've probably seen funny-looking URLs like http://host/path?user=Marty+Hall&origin=bwi&dest=lax. The part after the question mark (i.e., user=Marty+Hall& origin=bwi&dest=lax) is known as form data (or query data) and is the most common way to get information from a Web page to a server-side program. Form data can be attached to the end of the URL after a question mark (as above) for GET requests, ...
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