Simple ASP/ASP.NET question. Getting a value from an HTML text box

Question

I have this in my ASPX page:

<input id="MY_LAST_FOCUS" name="MY_LAST_FOCUS" type="text" runat="server" />

In the Form Load of my VB.NET code behind I have this:

Dim s as String = Request("MY_LAST_FOCUS")

Why is s always empty even though the MY_LAST_FOCUS HTML text box has text in it?

Answer 1

Why don't you use:

<asp:Textbox ID="MY_LAST_FOCUS" runat="server">

then in your code_behind you can access:

Dim s as String = MY_LAST_FOCUS.Text

Answer 2

Dim s as String = Request.Form(MY_LAST_FOCUS)

This works for me.

I agree with @Jack Marchetti though.

Answer 3

If you want to access directly from the request, then use the UniqueID of the control:

Request.Form[MY_LAST_FOCUS.UniqueID]

Answer 4

I agree with Jack, but if you want to keep it a plain old HTML input box, you could just get the value of it:

Dim s As String = MY_LAST_FOCUS.Value

This only works as long as you keep runat="server" on it though. And like Jack points out, you probably should just use an ASP.NET TextBox control instead.

Answer 5

Its empty because you seem to be grabbing from the Request object for something named what your input is, and not grabbing the contents of your input itself.