Retrieve full path of a file using javascript

Question

hello., i would like to retrieve fullpath of a file and pass it to javascript.. the requirement is that i need to retrieve xml file using javascript.

Answer 1

If you know the exact file up front, you can create a server-side program (i.e. service) to read the file, parse it and output it.

Then you'll just need to write some Javascript to make an AJAX call to this service (check out a Javascript library like Prototype or JQuery) to read the output of the service and thus the contents of the file.

Answer 2

If it is a file you can access relatively to your web page do something like:

var xmlDoc=new ActiveXObject("MSXML.DOMDocument");
xmlDoc.async="false";
xmlDoc.load("abc.xml"); 

Assuming you have your web page next to the abc.xml...

This doesn't specify how to get full path to the XML - do youi still need it or loading it is enough?

For cross browser (from: http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/xmlhttpreq.html)

var req;
loadXMLDoc("abc.xml");

function loadXMLDoc(url) {
    req = false;
    // branch for native XMLHttpRequest object
    if(window.XMLHttpRequest && !(window.ActiveXObject)) {
    try {
                req = new XMLHttpRequest();
            } catch(e) {
                req = false;
            }
        // branch for IE/Windows ActiveX version
        } else if(window.ActiveXObject) {
            try {
                req = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
            } catch(e) {
                try {
                    req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
                } catch(e) {
                    req = false;
                }
            }
        }
        if(req) {
            req.onreadystatechange = processReqChange;
            req.open("GET", url, true);
            req.send("");
        }
    }

    function processReqChange() {
        // only if req shows "loaded"
        if (req.readyState == 4) {
            // only if "OK"
            if (req.status == 200) {
                // ...processing statements go here...
                alert(req.responseXML);
            } else {
                alert("There was a problem retrieving the XML data:\n" + req.statusText);
            }
        }
    }