Get file path without the file - asp.net

Question

On a web page, I need to allow users to input the path to a file - which will be stored in a database so I can subsequently display 'a list of documents that apply to this project'.
If I put an input type="file" on the page, it makes it easy for the user to browse to the document ... but, when the form is submitted, the document will be uploaded to the server. I don't want the document, I just want the path.
How would you provide the functionality to allow a user to browse to a file so that you could record the path to the file without actually uploading the file itself?
I just want to end up showing, on a web page, a list of files like:
\myserver\folder20\somefolder\somefile.doc
\myserver2\folder50\somefolder\somefile.doc
I need to give users an easy way to locate those files in the first place - without having to laboriously open Windows Explorer, find the file, and copy and paste the path.
A file upload control gives you access to the path - which is what I need - but I don't want the file uploaded.

Answer 1

I am not very sure if this is what you want.
Assuming that you are selecting the file using input type="file" html control, you will be able to get the complete file path in jquery and pass that to your asp.net code behind using PageMethods (or ajax method of jquery). For this you would need to create a webmethod inside your aspx.cs class.
You can also get the machine name in javascript using any of the following lines of code
Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_ADDR"]
Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_HOST"]
Request.ServerVariables["REMOTE_USER"]
I was not able to test these as you have to enable Reverse DNS Lookup for your IIS. You need to search on the net for this.
So, the following steps you would need to do
Your file upload control should look something like this
<input type="file" id="fileSel" />
put a scriptmanager tag, if you dont have one, in your html and set EnablePageMethods to true as
<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" EnablePageMethods="true"></asp:ScriptManager>
Your javascript should look something like this.
//in javascript
$("document").ready(function () {
$("#fileSel").change(function () {
var val = $get("fileSel").value; // This will give you complete file path i.e. C:\...
alert(val);
PageMethods.SendForm(val, OnSucceeded, OnFailed);//Call to webmethod on server side
//you can also use ajax method but I was not able to make this work
// $.ajax({
// type: "POST",
// //Page Name (in which the method should be called) and method name
// url: "Default.aspx/SendForm",
// // If you want to pass parameter or data to server side function you can try line
// data: "{'fileName':'" + val + "'}",
// //else If you don't want to pass any value to server side function leave the data to blank line below
// // data: "{}",
// contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
// dataType: "json",
// success: function (msg) {
// //Got the response from server and render to the client
// alert(msg.d);
// }
// });
});
});
function OnSucceeded() {
alert("success");
}
function OnFailed(error) {
// Alert user of the error.
alert("failure");
}
The webmethod will be present inside the default.aspx.cs class as
public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
[System.Web.Services.WebMethod]
public static void SendForm(string fileName)
{
//Do your stuff here
}
}
Hope you will be able to solve your problem using the above steps.
Regards,
Samar