Insert multiple rows into dB from one dynamic HTML form problem

Question

Hi,
- I have form which has dynamically generated text fields so I don't want to hard code the field names into the servlet
- A user will fill in one or more of the text boxes with a number and submit to the servlet (the name of the field represents an item ID, the value represents a quantity the user wants of that item).
- The servlet needs to insert a new record into a table for each field that is not null.
My question is how!
If I send as an array or string, how will the servlet know that each submitted field needs to be inserted as a new record as opposed to one long record?
I know I'll need to use a loop of somekind; how will I know how long to loop for if the number of 'not null' fields is not static? I need to get a value for the number of 'not null' fields from the form before the loop starts I think but don't know how...
Also, should I call an SQL procedure that has an insert-loop OR should I have the servlet loop a call to a single insert statement? (am I making sense!?)
Anyway, I've seen many examples where a submitted form updates/inserts one record into a table but never any for multiple records at one time. I'm using a Tomcat/Oracle set up, and I'm "New to Java"...
Many thanks in advance.

Answer 1

sorry, but I dont' understand very well what do you want to do!
In any case if you want to retrieve all parameters (and you don't know what they are), you can use a general cosde like this:
Enumeration names= request.getParameterNames();
while(names.hasMoreElements()) {
// in 'name' you store the name of the parameter
String name = (String) names.nextElement();
// in 'value' you store it's value
String value = request.getParameter(name);
remember that ALL parameter values can't be null (if they are void their value is "").
The only case that you can get a null value is when you try to access a non existing parameter (like request.getParameter("pwqjsak"));
I hope this helps! Else try to give me more info about your problem