<APPLET> Tag Parameters: The <PARAM> Tag

These are the parameters passed directly to a Java applet. Parameters are to applets what command-line arguments are to applications. These parameters allow the user to customize the applet's operation. APPLET parameters stored in the PARAM tag actually have little directly to do with HTML. It is the responsibility of the applet to check the parameter values and respond accordingly. We can increase the applet's flexibility, making the applet work in multiple situations without recoding and recompiling it, by defining the parameters.

The two steps of passing parameters to applets are:

1. First, add the PARAM tag (with values) to the HTML source file.
2. Second, add necessary code to the applet to retrieve these parameter values. 
   

Lets see how to Pass Parameters to the Applet

<PARAM NAME=param_name VALUE=param_value> 

We use the above syntax to pass the parameters to the applet. In this syntax, param_name and param_value are the values passed to the Java applet.

Retrieving Parameters Within the Applet

These parameter values are retrieved by Java applets using the getParameter() method. This function is commonly called in the applet's init() method. The method syntax is the following:
String getParameter(String name);

Don't forget that the parameter names are case-sensitive when passing parameters to applets. Moreover all parameter values are converted to strings.