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Forms Introduction

by Charles Carroll

Forms are the primary way that a user feeds information into ASP. A form is a web page that contains tags that cause the browser to show fields that the user can fill in.

Forms can be HTML files. They only need to be ASP if ASPy type capabilities are needed (session variables, includes). 
The form must pass the variables onto a .asp file to process the form. 
An excellent form tutorial can be found at:
http://www.mountaindragon.com/html/forms.htm 
Form with GET

there is a limit on the number of characters (approximately 4,000 but varies depending on server and browsers involved.  
The form will show it's parameter in the browser address window, for example:
testform.asp?state=md&city=Germantown
would be the URL in the browser, if the state and city field were populated. 
An ASP script picks up a form field with:
<%whatever=request.querystring("whichfield")%> 
Form with POST

It supports many more characters than get (megabytes of data in case of file uploads) 
The form will not show it's parameter in the browser address window, for example:
http://whatever.com/testform.asp
would be the only URL in the browser, regardless of how many fields and how much data is passed. 
An ASP script picks up the form field with:
<%whatever=request.form("whichfield")%>