reading server file with javascript

Question

I have a html page using javascript that gives the user the option to read and use his own text files from his PC. But I want to have an example file on the server that the

Answer 1

The usual way to retrieve a text file (or any other server side resource) is to use AJAX. Here is an example of how you could alert the contents of a text file:

var xhr;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
    xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
    xhr = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}

xhr.onreadystatechange = function(){alert(xhr.responseText);};
xhr.open("GET","kgr.bss"); //assuming kgr.bss is plaintext
xhr.send();

The problem with your ultimate goal however is that it has traditionally not been possible to use javascript to access the client file system. However, the new HTML5 file API is changing this. You can read up on it here.