How do I check if file exists in jQuery or pure JavaScript?

Question

How do I check if a file on my server exists in jQuery or pure JavaScript?

Answer 1

With jQuery:

$.ajax({
    url:'http://www.example.com/somefile.ext',
    type:'HEAD',
    error: function()
    {
        //file not exists
    },
    success: function()
    {
        //file exists
    }
});

EDIT:

Here is the code for checking 404 status, without using jQuery

function UrlExists(url)
{
    var http = new XMLHttpRequest();
    http.open('HEAD', url, false);
    http.send();
    return http.status!=404;
}

Small changes and it could check for status HTTP status code 200 (success), instead.

EDIT 2: Since sync XMLHttpRequest is deprecated, you can add a utility method like this to do it async:

function executeIfFileExist(src, callback) {
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest()
    xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if (this.readyState === this.DONE) {
            callback()
        }
    }
    xhr.open('HEAD', src)
}

Answer 2

So long as you're testing files on the same domain this should work:

function fileExists(url) {
    if(url){
        var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
        req.open('GET', url, false);
        req.send();
        return req.status==200;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

Please note, this example is using a GET request, which besides getting the headers (all you need to check weather the file exists) gets the whole file. If the file is big enough this method can take a while to complete.

The better way to do this would be changing this line: req.open('GET', url, false); to req.open('HEAD', url, false);

Answer 3

For a client computer this can be achieved by:

try
{
  var myObject, f;
  myObject = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
  f =   myObject.GetFile("C:\\img.txt");
  f.Move("E:\\jarvis\\Images\\");
}
catch(err)
{
  alert("file does not exist")
}

This is my program to transfer a file to a specific location and shows alert if it does not exist

Answer 4

This works for me:

function ImageExist(url) 
{
   var img = new Image();
   img.src = url;
   return img.height != 0;
}

Answer 5

I use this script to check if a file exists (also it handles the cross origin issue):

$.ajax(url, {
       method: 'GET',
       dataType: 'jsonp'
         })
   .done(function(response) { 
        // exists code 
    }).fail(function(response) { 
        // doesnt exist
    })

Note that the following syntax error is thrown when the file being checked doesn't contain JSON.

Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token <

Answer 6

A similar and more up-to-date approach.

$.get(url)
    .done(function() { 
        // exists code 
    }).fail(function() { 
        // not exists code
    })