How to read and write into file using JavaScript?

Question

Can anybody give some sample code to read and write a file using JavaScript?

Answer 1

In the context of browser, Javascript can READ user-specified file. See Eric Bidelman's blog for detail about reading file using File API. However, it is not possible for browser-based Javascript to WRITE the file system of local computer without disabling some security settings because it is regarded as a security threat for any website to change your local file system arbitrarily.

Saying that, there are some ways to work around it depending what you are trying to do:

1. If it is your own site, you can embed a Java Applet in the web page. However, the visitor has to install Java on local machine and will be alerted about the security risk. The visitor has to allow the applet to be loaded. An Java Applet is like an executable software that has complete access to the local computer.

2. Chrome supports a file system which is a sandboxed portion of the local file system. See this page for details. This provides possibly for you to temporarily save things locally. However, this is not supported by other browsers.

3. If you are not limited to browser, Node.js has a complete file system interface. See here for its file system documentation. Note that Node.js can run not only on servers, but also any client computer including windows. The javascript test runner Karma is based on Node.js. If you just like to program in javascript on the local computer, this is an option.

Answer 2

To create file try

function makefile(){
  var fso;
  var thefile;

    fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
    thefile=fso.CreateTextFile("C:\\tmp\\MyFile.txt",true);

    thefile.close()
    }

Create your directory in the C drive because windows has security against writing from web e.g create folder named "tmp" in C drive.

Answer 3

This Javascript function presents a complete "Save As" Dialog box to the user who runs this through the browser. The user presses OK and the file is saved.

Edit: The following code only works with IE Browser since Firefox and Chrome have considered this code a security problem and has blocked it from working.

// content is the data you'll write to file<br/>
// filename is the filename<br/>
// what I did is use iFrame as a buffer, fill it up with text
function save_content_to_file(content, filename)
{
    var dlg = false;
    with(document){
     ir=createElement('iframe');
     ir.id='ifr';
     ir.location='about.blank';
     ir.style.display='none';
     body.appendChild(ir);
      with(getElementById('ifr').contentWindow.document){
           open("text/plain", "replace");
           charset = "utf-8";
           write(content);
           close();
           document.charset = "utf-8";
           dlg = execCommand('SaveAs', false, filename+'.txt');
       }
       body.removeChild(ir);
     }
    return dlg;
}

Invoke the function:

save_content_to_file("Hello", "C:\\test");

Answer 4

You can't do this in any cross-browser way. IE does have methods to enable "trusted" applications to use ActiveX objects to read/write files, but that is it unfortunately.

If you are looking to save user information, you will most likely need to use cookies.

Answer 5

here's the mozilla proposal

http://www-archive.mozilla.org/js/js-file-object.html

this is implemented with a compilation switch in spidermonkey, and also in adobe's extendscript. Additionally (I think) you get the File object in firefox extensions.

rhino has a (rather rudementary) readFile function https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Rhino_Shell

for more complex file operations in rhino, you can use java.io.File methods.

you won't get any of this stuff in the browser though. For similar functionality in a browser you can use the SQL database functions from HTML5, clientside persistence, cookies, and flash storage objects.

Answer 6

There are two ways to read and write a file using JavaScript

1. Using JavaScript extensions

2. Using a web page and Active X objects