使用html5 FileReader访问本地文件

Question

I'm trying to make an offline app that reads text from a text file that is stored locally. I understand this is possible with html5 and FileReader. I want to hard-code the relative path. I have read the docs and all them them are based on an array of FileList. But since I am just doing one file with a static path, I can't make sense of it. This is silly, I know, but what I have so far:

var file = "data/data";
var reader = new FileReader();
reader.readAsText(file);
alert(reader.String);

Answer 1

The FileReader API lets you read files selected by the user in a file input.

It does not let the author of a webpage choose files from their visitor's systems to read. That would be a security risk.

Answer 2

This is possible using ActiveX, which isn't too hard to do if you've never worked with it. Check this out for more info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2z9ffy99(v=vs.84).aspx

Just means the user will probably have to agree to let ActiveX run.. which admittedly might scare a few away. So it depends upon how much you actually need it.