Are empty fields in form of JSP null or “”?

Question

When a form is passed in to a servlet are empty fields \"\" or null? So for example in a form where you have First name as a field and last name as a field
Dean

Answer 1

It also depends on the server. JBoss will give you empty Strings, but WebSphere will give you null. It's a real PITA. I'm sure there's some standard out there that says one way or another (my money would be on JBoss being the correct implementation) but you should code for both possibilities.