As a start, here is a couple of ways to read a file with javascript
HttpRequest: (from web server or absolute path)
Source: Javascript - read local text file
function readTextFile(file)
{
var rawFile = new XMLHttpRequest();
rawFile.open("GET", file, true);
rawFile.onreadystatechange = function ()
{
if(rawFile.readyState === 4)
{
if(rawFile.status === 200 || rawFile.status == 0)
{
var allText = rawFile.responseText;
alert(allText);
}
}
}
rawFile.send(null);
}
And specify file:// in your filename when using an absolute path
readTextFile("file:///C:/your/path/to/file.txt");
FileReader API:
Source:
- http://codepen.io/matt-west/pen/KjEHg
- http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/reading-files-using-the-html5-filereader-api
HTML
<div id="page-wrapper">
<h1>Text File Reader</h1>
<div>
Select a text file:
<input type="file" id="fileInput">
</div>
<pre id="fileDisplayArea"><pre>
</div>
JS
window.onload = function() {
var fileInput = document.getElementById('fileInput');
var fileDisplayArea = document.getElementById('fileDisplayArea');
fileInput.addEventListener('change', function(e) {
var file = fileInput.files[0];
var textType = /text.*/;
if (file.type.match(textType)) {
var reader = new FileReader();
reader.onload = function(e) {
fileDisplayArea.innerText = reader.result;
}
reader.readAsText(file);
} else {
fileDisplayArea.innerText = "File not supported!"
}
});
}
JS on MS Windows (simple sample)
Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/czxefwt8(v=vs.84).aspx
function ReadFiles()
{
var fso, f1, ts, s;
var ForReading = 1;
fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
ts = fso.OpenTextFile("c:\\testfile.txt", ForReading);
s = ts.ReadLine();
// s holds the text content
ts.Close();
}
