Best Way to Encode Response Parameter

[Gabriel Cane]

I'm writing a servlet that will generate a list of links to files whose data I plan to display on the next page. Each link will contain the filename and JavaScript that will submit the form, whose action is to call the next servlet.
Then I want to pass the filename parameter to the next servlet so that it can access the file. I know there are several effective methods for doing this, but I'd like to know which one is the best.
1) Create separate <FORM> tags to surround each link which will have either:
1 a) An ACTION attribute that will will contain a "?filename=<filename>.<ext>" String
1 b) A hidden input field that will contain the name/value pair.
2) Write a JavaScript function on the page that will take the parameter name and value as parameters to attach to the ACTION attribute in <FORM>.
3) Pass the parameter name and value to the Session object and retrieve them from the Session in the next servlet.
4) Something I haven't yet considered.
What do you think?

[Mike Curwen]

You can fake a GET submission by placing the filename into the URL itself.

No Javascript needed
No FORM needed.

The link would be something like:

 <a href="/myNextServlet?filename=FileA.txt">FileA.txt</a> 

The servlet that generates this page can build these links dynamically.

Something like:

String beginLink = "<a href=\"/myNextServlet?filename=";
String middleLink = "\">";
String endLink = "</a>";
 
while (not the end of the files) {
   out.println(beginLink + filename + middleLink + filename + endLink);
} 

[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: Mike Curwen ]
[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: Mike Curwen ]