[xwiki-devs] $request.getParameter()

Hello All, I have come across this many times and am not sure what I am doing wrong here. I have a simple HTML form on a page and there is one <select> type input. If I try to get the selected value of this field on the same page, using #set($something = $request.getParameter("name of the filed")) , it does not do anything but if I do the same in a .vm file, it gets the value fine. What am I doign wrong, in the process of getting the value on the same page using velocity. Thanks