POSTING TO JSP FORMS GIVES NULL OBJECT RATHER THAN EMPTY STRING

Question

This post is for Dan Norris of DOE. He brought this up in a submitted tar, but it is addressed by the PDK community here.
We arehaving problems using the standard HTTPServletRequest getParameter
methodinside of the portal.
The standard for this method is as follows:
*If you usethis method to read from a text field without any text in it, you
get an empty string. ( "" )
*If you use it to read from a text field with text in it youwould get the
corresponding text.
*If you try to read from a field that doesn'texist then and only then would
you get a Null object.
On our portal server itis behaving differently inside of portlets.
* If you use this method to readfrom a text field without any text in it, you
get a Null Object
* If you use itto read from a text field with text in it you would get the
correspondingtext.
* If you try to read from a field that doesn't exist you also would youget a
Null object.
Also, on the same server If you access a simple JSP directlywithout the it
being a portlet, it behaves as defined by standard Javadocumentation.
Test case:
Create test.jsp with these contents:
========start test.jsp
<%@pageimport = "oracle.portal.provider.v1.*,
oracle.portal.provider.v1.http.*"%>
Form to test submission of empty form field.<br>
Text Field Value ="<%=request.getParameter("testField")%>"
<form name="test" action="<%=
HttpPortletRendererUtil.htmlFormActionLink(request,PortletRendererUtil.PAGE_LINK
) %>">
<%=
HttpPortletRendererUtil.htmlFormHiddenFields(request,PortletRendererUtil.PAGE_LI
NK) %>
<INPUT type="text" name="testField">
<INPUT type="Submit"name="Submit">
</form>
========end test.jsp
=================startprovider.xml
<provider class="oracle.portal.provider.v1.http.DefaultProvider"
session="true">
<portlet class="oracle.portal.provider.v1.http.DefaultPortlet" version="1" >
<id>1</id>
<name>TestPortlet</name>
<title>Test</title>
<description>Test</description>
<timeout>100</timeout>
<timeoutMsg>Test Portlet timed out.</timeoutMsg>
<showEdit>false</showEdit>
<showEditDefault>false</showEditDefault>
<showPreview>false</showPreview>
<showDetails>false</showDetails>
<hasHelp>false</hasHelp>
<hasAbout>false</hasAbout>
<acceptContentTypes>
<item>text/html</item>
</acceptContentTypes>
<portletRenderer class="oracle.portal.provider.v1.http.PageRenderer" >
<appPath>/</appPath>
<appRoot>/u01/app/oracle/product/ias1021/Apache/Apache/htdocs</appRoot>
<renderContainer>false</renderContainer>
<showPage>test.jsp</showPage>
<pageParameterName>next_page</pageParameterName >
</portletRenderer>
</portlet>
</provider>
=================end provider.xml
After you have theprovider added to the portal, login to the portal as
portal30 and go toAdminister Tab->Display Portlet Repository and display the
portlet.
1.Enter "test" in the text field and submit.
2. Returns Text Field Value ="test"
3. Submit form leaving the text field empty.
4. Returns Text FieldValue = "null"
Submitting the form with the text field empty should returnvalue of "", and
not "null".

Answer 1

fyi in case anyone else ever wants to know:
I found it... the details I was looking for were in the OC4J 9.0.2 Release Notes:
Display of null values in JSP.
In Oracle9iAS, a null value printed from a JSP page displays, by default, as
the string "null." To display nothing instead, set the attribute jsp-print-null
to false in the <web-app> element of
global-web-app.xml or orion-web.xml.