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JavaScript for "Choose File"

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Nov 16.2010

I want to fill the HTML form with JavaScript. The following JavaScript code

document.forms[‘theForm’][‘city’].value = ‘Ottawa’

fills the HTML form OK as follows.

<input type=”text” name=”city” value=”Ottawa”>

However, the following JavaScript

document.forms[‘theForm’][‘uploadfile’].value = ‘/Users/gss/Desktop/ToDo.txt’

does not fill the form to upload a file next to question “Choose File”. What I want is the following, but the “value” part is not accepted for some reason.

<input type=’file’ name=’uploadfile’ value=’/Users/gss/Desktop/ToDo.txt’/>

Even if I directly hard-code the “value” part in HTML itself, the web browser does not show it. Could anyone tell me why and how to make the JavaScript work? Thanks in advance!!!

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JavaScript

4 Comments(s) ↴

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@WebWarriorNov 16.2010 — As described in http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/dom_obj_fileupload.asp

you can only "get" the [I]value[/I] property of the[I] input file[/I]. You cannot "set" it. You can however set/get [I]defaultValue[/I] property.
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@GoSimonauthorNov 16.2010 — As described in http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/dom_obj_fileupload.asp

you can only "get" the [I]value[/I] property of the[I] input file[/I]. You cannot "set" it. You can however set/get [I]defaultValue[/I] property.[/QUOTE]

defaultValue Sets or returns the initial value of the FileUpload object

However,

<input type='file' name='uploadfile' defaultValue='/Users/gss/Desktop/ToDo.txt'/>

still says "no file selected", and

document.forms['theForm']['uploadfile'].defaultValue = '/Users/gss/Desktop/ToDo.txt'

has no effect at all. What is going on? My web browser is Safari.
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@WebWarriorNov 16.2010 — Actually, I believe there is no standard way to populate the file input field. I didn't think of this much, since I never had to use it. Today however, after running a few tests and googling this issue a bit, I will have to admit so. This is really a security concern on the part of the browsers and there isn't much that can be done here really.
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@rnd_meNov 16.2010 — the user must click and choose a file to populate the input, despite what any attribs you set say...

this is a basic security must: imaging if someone could pre-populate config.sys, htaccess, bookmarks.html, or the like...
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