Re: New FileAPI Draft | was Re: FileAPI feedback

On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:12:50 -0400, Arun Ranganathan <arun@mozilla.com>  
wrote:

> Nikunj R. Mehta wrote:
>  On Aug 12, 2009, at 7:29 AM, Arun Ranganathan wrote:
>  Gregg Tavares wrote:
> How about this?
>  Why make a new API for getting the contents of a file (local or  
> otherwise)
> when we already have one which is XHR?
>  What if FileList was just array of File objects where each File object  
> is
> just a URL in the format
>  "filedata: uuid, filename"
>  Then you can use that URL anywhere in HTML a URL is valid. script, img,
> audio, video, css, AND XHR
>  That would mean you wouldn't be adding a new API to get the contents of  
> a
> file. If you want the contents just use XHR and use the URL from the  
> File in
> the FileList.
>  You could add a few more functions to XHR like request.getAsDataURL(),
> request.getAsTextInEncodiing(), etc. if need be if they are neede
>  Today, it's possible to use XHR from "privileged web content" in  
> Firefox to access file:// URLs; the drawback is that these don't return  
> HTTP responses, and of course there are security considerations.
>  As stated, the XHR algorithm for open() [1] allows relative references  
> and resolves them relative to the document base URI. Does that mean that  
> if the document was loaded using file: uri, then the XHR could be used  
> for loading a file?
> Currently, this behavior is not standard, and there are interoperability  
> issues across user agents.  Michael Puls II did ran some tests some time  
> ago and posted these on this listserv:
>  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2009AprJun/0200.html

I have a more specific proposal about simulating HTTP status codes for  
file: operations that I'll be posting soon.

I also have an alternate proposal to post soon for a simple FileReader api  
to replace the local file loading part of DOM3 L&S, document.load and XHR.

I also have some questions about using the new FileAPI to load files on  
file:// without the use of <input type="file">.

(Will post these things in new threads soon.)

-- 
Michael

Received on Tuesday, 18 August 2009 00:44:19 UTC