Escaping backslash in string - javascript

Question

I need to show the name of the currently selected file (in <input type="file"> element).

Everything is fine, the only problem is I'm getting this kind of string "C:\fakepath \typog_rules.pdf" (browset automatically puts this as value for the input element).

When I try to split the string by '\' or '\\' it fails because of unescaped slashes. Attempts to match/replace slashes fails too. Is there a way around this? I need this to work at least in Opera and IE (because in other browsers I can use FileReader)

E.G. I'm getting "C:\fakepath\typog_rules.pdf" as input and want to get "typog_rules.pdf" as output.

Answer 1

For security reasons, it is not possible to get the real, full path of a file, referred through an <input type="file" /> element.

This question already mentions, and links to other Stack Overflow questions regarding this topic.

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The backslash has to be escaped.

string = string.split("\\");

In JavaScript, the backslash is used to escape special characters, such as newlines (\n). If you want to use a literal backslash, a double backslash has to be used.

So, if you want to match two backslashes, four backslashes has to be used. For example,alert("\\\\") will show a dialog containing two backslashes.