Question

Is there a way to get the modification time of a file (either ctime or mtime should work) that is accessed locally through JavaScript?

I want to go to file:///home/me/mtime.html and have the JavaScript tell me that /home/me/file.txt was modified 2 minutes ago or something. I Understand that JavaScript has limited file access due to security problems, but is there some trick since it is all done locally.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Firefox has a set of components under its XPCOM (ActiveX competitor technology) that could be used to do the same thing.

Probably something like this (untested):

function getLastModifiedTime(filePath) 
{
    try 
    {
        netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalXPConnect");
    } 
    catch (e) 
    {
        throw new Error("Permission to read file was denied.");
    }

    var file = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/file/local;1"]
    .createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsILocalFile);

    file.initWithPath( filePath );

    return file.lastModifiedTime;
}

As for Safari…. no idea. Maybe a signed java applet?