Web page that monitors a certain file

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Hi Everyone,

I'm fairly new to this place and was hoping to get some insight.

I'm looking to start this project, it's just a simple webpage that monitors a certain local flat file.

For example, I have a file(xml, json, or other format) that contains attributes for a certain item. How do I display those attributes on the web page?

Parsing is not an issue, I just need to know where to even start with this: how to make that local webpage accessible within the network, suggestions on languages I use, and just generally where to start.

Any insight is much appreciated. Hope the problem makes sense. Thanks!

-D

Posted 24-Jan-12 11:27am

mrallender

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 24-Jan-12 18:45pm

First of all, HTML, client-side Javascript or a Web browser cannot "monitor" anything. So, you should talk about some server-side technology. So what is that: ASP.NET, Python/WSGI, PHP, "whatever your advise" or something else?
What is "local webpage", exactly? Do you want to monitor a file on client side or a server side? You say "local file". Local to what side? :-)

Main question is: why doing such thing? What's the ultimate goal of this activity?
You see, if you are trying to do anything weird, you cannot hope for a useful advice unless you explain why. Who will be interested to answer about some activity which may or may not make sense?

--SA

mrallender 24-Jan-12 19:08pm

Server-side technology is what I'm looking for.

A local webpage is just a page that does not need to be accessed via internet, just within the intranet. A local file is hosted on the server that is running this program.

I currently have a framework for a racing game, and i would like to display the player's live status on a webpage that can be accessed within the network. For example just have a table that shows each player, their status, current running time, and place.

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Answer 1 · 2012-01-24T13:03:00

Please see my comments to this question.

Even before you answered, after analysis of what you possibly might mean, I think that what you are asking may not make any sense, not matter what you meant.

Please follow my logic. If you want to monitor a file on the client system, it cannot be implemented, due to security reasons. A Web application does not have any access to the local system, for a good reason. I think people would not be using Web it it could. And monitoring any file and reporting it to other users on the Web would be not acceptable not by a general security reasons, but also and in particular by a privacy violation threat.

The Web browser rendering local HTML file (which would not be a security or privacy threat) also cannot monitor anything. Besides, it would not make any sense, because of a local system use, it's easy to write a local software which has nothing do to with Web technologies (because — why?) and could presumably be a simple Windows Service.

Finally, even though some server-side code could monitor a file local to the server's host, it cannot make any sense in principle. No file on the HTTP server or its host should be modified by any random access by anything. It can only be modified via the Web application itself (as it actually happens when a local database is used; and the Web user are able update some data). But it this case, nothing like monitoring is ever needed, as the proper update events are triggered by HTTP posts. The file as such it totally irrelevant here. The Wen interface works with data and events triggered by the Web users, not with files.

So, from my reasoning I infer that the question makes no sense. However, if you feel that I miss anything, please correct me.

—SA