Question

Using a python cgi script and I have a form with both a Submit and Cancel button.

• When a user tries to leave the web page by clicking Cancel, closing the window or hitting the back button, I want to delete a file that exists on the server. The file name is dependent on the values in the form.

• When the user clicks the Submit button, no file will be deleted. The form action is to take the user to another python cgi script.

  I can catch the user leaving the page with javascript onbeforeunload event, but I can’t delete the files in javascript. How do I delete the files?

Answer 1

You can’t access server files using Javascript because of security reasons. However, you can make a postback in the onbeforeunload event and on the server-side event (which handles this postback) you can delete the server file(s) to be deleted.