I have a simple servlet (using the org.gjt.mm.mysql driver) that creates a flat html table displaying many the many fields a mySQL table. However, some users tell me that the size of the table creates browser viewing problems. Consequently, I am interested in displaying an abbreviated table that permits the values of a key field to display the remaining data fields for records with that value only, essentially "drilling down" into the table.

In effect, I want to create a second HTML table (separate page) that effectively generates series of potentially "dependent" servlets that use the value of the hyperlinked field to populate the value for a WHERE clause. That is, the first call would be SELECT FIELD1, FIELD2 FROM TABLEX; and the second call would then be generated from hyperlinks within the second displayed table of the form SELECT FIELD3, FIELD4, ... FIELD50 FROM TABLEX WHERE FIELD1="value for that row of initial html table".

How can I create the second HTML table without actually creating multiple copies of the servlet code for each and every unique value of FIELD1?

I guess that this is another way of asking how can I use the JDBC to evoke mySQL to obtain (construct) the equivalent of a cgi call to a URL with appended ?name="value" parameters.

Has anyone done this and would you be willing to share some code?