117

I've seen similar questions before, which ends up with no solution, because of security reasons.

But today I see hostmonster has successfully implemented this when I opened a ticket and attached a file in their backend.

It works both with firefox and IE(version 8 to be exact).

I've verified it's exactly client side scripting; no request is sent(with firebug).

1
  • What do you mean by "get a file name"? Isn't the file name obvious, because the user just selected it? Commented Feb 3, 2010 at 4:11

7 Answers 7

144

You can get the file name, but you cannot get the full client file-system path.

Try to access to the value attribute of your file input on the change event.

Most browsers will give you only the file name, but there are exceptions like IE8 which will give you a fake path like: "C:\fakepath\myfile.ext" and older versions (IE <= 6) which actually will give you the full client file-system path (due its lack of security).

document.getElementById('fileInput').onchange = function () {
  alert('Selected file: ' + this.value);
};
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7 Comments

I'm getting C:\fakepath\... in chrome, but it's fine for my purposes. Thanks.
This is about security reason. Web sites must not learn user's folder path.
Can clean it up like this: f = f.replace(/.*[\/\\]/, '');
Capture event in the handler function and then use evt.target.files[0].name.
Olzak's comment is the best answer
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79

You can use the next code:

JS

    function showname () {
      var name = document.getElementById('fileInput'); 
      alert('Selected file: ' + name.files.item(0).name);
      alert('Selected file: ' + name.files.item(0).size);
      alert('Selected file: ' + name.files.item(0).type);
    };

HTML

<body>
    <p>
        <input type="file" id="fileInput" multiple onchange="showname()"/>
    </p>    
</body>

1 Comment

You set input id="name" and call it name.files....? Are you seriouse? Why not id="fileInput" or whatever which make sense?
8

just tested doing this and it seems to work in firefox & IE

<html>
    <head>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            function alertFilename()
            {
                var thefile = document.getElementById('thefile');
                alert(thefile.value);
            }
        </script>
    </head>
    <body>
        <form>
            <input type="file" id="thefile" onchange="alertFilename()" />
            <input type="button" onclick="alertFilename()" value="alert" />
        </form>
    </body>
</html>

1 Comment

That's interesting. When I do it I get C:\fakepath\background.jpg. Literally that.
8

I'll answer this question via Simple Javascript that is supported in all browsers that I have tested so far (IE8 to IE11, Chrome, FF etc).

Here is the code.

function GetFileSizeNameAndType()
        {
        var fi = document.getElementById('file'); // GET THE FILE INPUT AS VARIABLE.

        var totalFileSize = 0;

        // VALIDATE OR CHECK IF ANY FILE IS SELECTED.
        if (fi.files.length > 0)
        {
            // RUN A LOOP TO CHECK EACH SELECTED FILE.
            for (var i = 0; i <= fi.files.length - 1; i++)
            {
                //ACCESS THE SIZE PROPERTY OF THE ITEM OBJECT IN FILES COLLECTION. IN THIS WAY ALSO GET OTHER PROPERTIES LIKE FILENAME AND FILETYPE
                var fsize = fi.files.item(i).size;
                totalFileSize = totalFileSize + fsize;
                document.getElementById('fp').innerHTML =
                document.getElementById('fp').innerHTML
                +
                '<br /> ' + 'File Name is <b>' + fi.files.item(i).name
                +
                '</b> and Size is <b>' + Math.round((fsize / 1024)) //DEFAULT SIZE IS IN BYTES SO WE DIVIDING BY 1024 TO CONVERT IT IN KB
                +
                '</b> KB and File Type is <b>' + fi.files.item(i).type + "</b>.";
            }
        }
        document.getElementById('divTotalSize').innerHTML = "Total File(s) Size is <b>" + Math.round(totalFileSize / 1024) + "</b> KB";
    }
    <p>
        <input type="file" id="file" multiple onchange="GetFileSizeNameAndType()" />
    </p>

    <div id="fp"></div>
    <p>
        <div id="divTotalSize"></div>
    </p>

*Please note that we are displaying filesize in KB (Kilobytes). To get in MB divide it by 1024 * 1024 and so on*.

It'll perform file outputs like these on selecting Snapshot of a sample output of this code

Comments

3

This is based on a comment under the accepted answer, but easiest might be:

$(".fileUploader").on("change", function(e){
   console.log(e.target.files[0].name);
})

Or iterate if you have mutliple file selection enabled on that input. Assumes <input class="fileUploader" ....>.

Comments

1

This works clean for me, no C:\fakepath\ :)

document.getElementById('fileInput').onchange = function () {
  alert('Selected file: ' + this.files[0].name);
};

Comments

0

To clean up the C:\fakepath\

I add .replace('C:\\fakepath\\', ' ') to replace it with an empty string

Comments

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