Java parse URL params

Hello,
Here is sample code:

public class ExampleServlet extends HttpServlet {
    protected void service(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws ServletException, IOException {
      String param1 = request.getParameter("tag1");
      // Now param1 holds value1
     }
}

You can get a listing of parameter names OR if you use same parameter name like:

tag=value1&tag=value2&tag=value3

You can get an array using the getParameterValues, otherwise you have to get each param specifically like FarzadA has shown.

http://java.sun.com/j2ee/sdk_1.3/techdocs/api/javax/servlet/ServletRequest.html

My java app handles web requests, it's not a servlet.  
Is there a way to make this work without the servlet aspect?  

Maybe this will be more helpful for REST.

http://developer.yahoo.com/java/howto-parseRestJava.html

So are you getting the entire request as a string as shown in example?

Yep.. I'm getting a string that is:
URLString = "http://localhost/server?&value1=value1&value2=value2"
And I'd like to parse for the values..  I'm putting it into a new URL, but can't find a good parser lib yet.