Can't make javascript load .txt file, to load links

Question

I have made a feature that takes you to a random link, but i got a lot of links at the moment, and was wondering how i could make javascript read a text file that has all the links.

The code that i have right now does not work, i have tried other similar methods but nothing works.

<script>
        var sites = [
            function readTextFile("file:///Nicklas Behrend/Desktop/links.txt");
            {
                var rawFile = new XMLHttpRequest();
                rawFile.open("GET", file, false);
                rawFile.onreadystatechange = function ()
                {
                    if(rawFile.readyState === 4)
                    {
                        if(rawFile.status === 200 || rawFile.status == 0)
                        {
                            var allText = rawFile.responseText;
                            alert(allText);
                        }
                    }
                }
                rawFile.send(null);
            }
        ];

        function randomSite() {
            var i = parseInt(Math.random() * sites.length);
            location.href = sites[i];
        }
    </script>

Answer 1

Looks like you have a syntax error. It should probably be this:

var sites = [];
function readTextFile(file, callback) {
  var rawFile = new XMLHttpRequest();
  rawFile.open("GET", file, false);
  rawFile.onreadystatechange = function () {
    if(rawFile.readyState === 4) {
      if(rawFile.status === 200 || rawFile.status == 0) {
        var allText = rawFile.responseText;
        alert(allText);
        callback(allText);
      }
    }
  }
  rawFile.send(null);
}

readTextFile("file:///Nicklas Behrend/Desktop/links.txt", filesText =>{
    sites = filesText.split('\n');
});

function randomSite() {
    var i = parseInt(Math.random() * sites.length);
    location.href = sites[i];
 }

You were trying to declare and run the function at the same time, which is all wrong. Also, an XMLHttpRequest() is async, so you have to have a callback which will return the text.

Once you have that, you can then split the text into an array of sites (I assumed they were newline-delimited in this case).