Reading from & writing to files in same domain using JavaScript

Question

Say I have a website hosted via Bluehost or the like, at example.com. If I have a file stored at example.com/a.txt, how can I go about reading from this file? And, if I want to write a new string to this file, is it possible to do so, or is it impossible with JavaScript in the web?

You read it using ajax (XHR, fetch, whatever). You can only write to it with the help of server-side code. — Heretic Monkey, Oct 23 '20 at 19:26
Does this answer your question? [How do I load the contents of a text file into a javascript variable?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/196498/how-do-i-load-the-contents-of-a-text-file-into-a-javascript-variable) — Zak, Oct 23 '20 at 19:26

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 23 '20 at 19:28

you could make a simple api using express and use file-system or fs with that package you can do that with a single line after doing const fs = require("fs"); :

const constant = fs.readFileSync("path");  //read the file
fs.writeFile("path", "something to write", () => {
    //a callback func
  });```

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 23 '20 at 19:36

In short no. But you have workarounds:

You can open some folder for the public view:

static files - read only access (styles and javascript)
media files - read only access (pictures and other media)
some manually created url - to edit/create the file in the media folder

Reading from & writing to files in same domain using JavaScript

2 Answers2