Scan folder content in Javascript

Question

I am trying to build an HTML5 video player that will automatically turn on playlist mode if there is more than one video file in the /videos folder.

I'm trying not to use PHP for this so please keep that in mind when suggesting something.

Thank you.

Solution

You cannot access file-system using JavaScript. But, you can do a fake HTTP request to the directory with index access:

var dir = "/videos";
var fileextension = ".mp4";
$.ajax({
    //This will retrieve the contents of the folder if the folder is configured as 'browsable'
    url: dir,
    success: function (data) {
        // List all mp4 file names in the page
        $(data).find("a:contains(" + fileextension + ")").each(function () {
            var filename = this.href.replace(window.location.host, "").replace("http:///", "");
            $("body").append($("<img src=" + dir + filename + "></img>"));
        });
    }
});