Hidden field in form returns null value

Question

Hi all - I searched for this but found nothing that fit my problem although various other problems came up.
I have a Login jsp, with a simple form for username and password:
<form name="login" method="post" action="servlet/ControlServlet"
onSubmit="return validateForm()"><table width="180" border="0"
cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
            <tr>
              <td width="96" class="logintext">Username</td>
              <td width="84"> </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td><input name="username" type="text" size="15"
maxlength="15"></td>
              <td><input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Login"></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td class="logintext">Password</td>
              <td> </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td class="logintext"><input name="password" type="password"
size="15" maxlength="15"></td>
              <td><input name="actionCode" type="hidden" value="0"></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td> </td>
              <td><div align="center"><a href
="Register.jsp"><i>Register</i></a></div></td>
            </tr>
          </table>
          </form>Nothing complex in that form. my hidden field is actionCode and it should pass a 0 to my ControlServlet servlet.
Here is a snippet from my servlet:
import java.io.* ;
import java.util.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
public class ControlServlet extends HttpServlet {
  public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request,
                    HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, IOException {
    response.setContentType("text/html");
            //get the printwriter to output for debugging
            PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
            //read in form variables
        //String formUsername = request.getParameter("username");
        //String formPassword = request.getParameter("password");
        String action = request.getParameter("actionCode");
        //convert String to int for action
        //int actionInt = Integer.parseInt(action);
        //add action variable to request
        request.setAttribute("aktion", action);
            //debug point 1
            //use requestDispatcher to forward session info to JSP
           RequestDispatcher dispatcher =
           request.getRequestDispatcher("/mvcoutput.jsp");
           dispatcher.forward(request, response);I have commented out a bit for debugging purposes, but basically, the form variables are read in, the username and password don't give me any problems, but the actionCode does. Upon forwarding to a basic jsp for testing my output displays value "null" when using the command:
request.getAttribute("aktion")Any reason why the hidden field is playing silly buggers ??
cheers

Answer 1

Anyone ???
If I have a field in an html form which is hidden, do I retrieve it in the SAME WAY that I retrieve the non hidden form fields i.e. using the request.getParameter() method ??
Cheers.