Question

I would like to know if there is some way to read a .txt file from Javascript in real-time?
I have a log file that updates every few seconds. I want to parse some data from that log file as it updates and display it in a html.
Can I do this live?
Thanks a lot guys!

Answer 1

Assuming the file is somewhere publicly accessible, you can have a javascript function which makes an AJAX request every few seconds to read the file. Something like the following:

function getLog() {
    $.ajax({
        url: 'logfile.txt',
        dataType: 'text',
        success: function(text) {
            $("#containerDiv").text(text);
            setTimeout(getLog, 30000); // refresh every 30 seconds
        }
    })
}

getLog();