title: How to get parameters out of a url encoded string (not a URL) in java
body: <p>I have a url encoded string that is returned from an API I am using. I want to do something request.getParameter("paramname") on the string. What I'm looking for is something like str.request.getParameter("paramname"). There's gotta be something like this right?</p>
  
  <p>clarification the api returns something like:
  name1=val1&amp;name2=val2&amp;name3=val3</p>
  
  <p>I know i could do a split on "&amp;" and then go through each element but that seems stupid. Please advise. Thanks!</p>