Passing parameter problem

[Faisal Fuad]

Hi everyone. Having a very funny problem. New here in Servlet stuff and so need your help. From a simple html page i want to pass a input to a servlet where it will do some specific talks. Now the logic i was thinking is like: If the user puss null value then the servlet will check and will say "Sorry" or else the servlet will be happy to serve.

I used the IF..ELSE statement to do the evaluation part in the Servlet but don't know why it is everytime going to the ELSE part of the statement even though i am not passing anything from the html page.

The Html page is as follows:

<form method="GET" action="GetData">
  <p> Search ID : <input type="text" name="searchID" size="20"> 
  <input type="submit" value="Go" name="B1"></p>
</form>

And the Servlet "GetData.java" is as follows:

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;

public class GetData extends HttpServlet{
  
	public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
  throws ServletException, IOException {
	  
	  response.setContentType("text/html");
	  PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
	  
	  String search_id = null;
	  
	  search_id = request.getParameter("searchID");
	  
	  if (search_id.equals(null)){
		  out.println("ERROR: No search text specified."+"<br>");
	  }
	  else if (search_id != null){
		  out.println("You are searching for : "+ "  " + search_id + "<br>");
	  }  
  }
} 

Can any one please let me know where i am doing the mistake?

Thank you very much.

[Murthy Tanniru]

correct the code as below:

if (search_id == null || search_id.trim().length() == 0)

[Faisal Fuad]

..........and it is beautifully resolved. Thank you so much Tanniru. God bless