Access Local Files with Local Javascript [duplicate]

Answer 1

You should consider some sort of server side scripting language such a PHP, Perl, JSP or some form of SSJS.

Answer 2

A webpage can read any file on the same server as it was loaded from (this is the cross-site policy of JavaScript). That means that the page file:///C:/mywebsite/index.html can read the file file://C:/somedir/somefile.xml. To read this file, either use ajax, load it in an iFrame or load it as a javascript or css file.

Several browsers support custom methods for loading local file (and other interesting things), IE has activeX and Firefox has XPCOM.

Answer 3

IF the user grants your webpage permission to access those files, and IF they are located on the same machine as the webpage, then there is nothing preventing you from gaining Read Only access to files on the machine via JavaScript.

Answer 4

If you make an hypertext application page (.hta) instead of an HTML page (.htm/.html), then you have full access to the file system, using the FileSystemObject object.

(Well, limited by the file access of the user account that is running the browser, of course.)