The request object holds all the information coming to the server from the browser.  For now, we will focus mainly on one collection contained within the object:  Parameter.

A collection is simply a number of related items grouped together.  For example, you might keep your collection of music (CD’s, tapes, etc) in a special rack designed to hold them.

The Parameter collection contains all name/value pairs for the Form and the QueryString.  The name of the field is the key to the collection.  For example, if you had a form field named "firstName," and you wanted to store the value in a variable named "firstname," the code would look like this:
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firstName = request.getParameter("firstName");
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Values always come back as a String.  You would have to do an explicit conversion for other data types:
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age = Integer.parseInt(request.getParameter("age"));
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