I want to write a web application that will read a file chosen by the
user (in a FORM UPLOAD) and process it. One solution is to have
client-side Javascript upload the file to the server, and have the
server echo the file back to the client via an XMLHTTPRequest. But
this is awkward because we have to send the file back and forth over
the network.

Is there any way I can read the file directly from the FORM UPLOAD
object with Javascript? It doesn't seem like a security problem to me,
so I can't figure out why it wouldn't be allowed. I would like this to
work in both IE and Firefox.

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Clarification of Question by arthur78-ga on 27 Mar 2006 10:40 PST

By "FORM UPLOAD" I mean <FORM><INPUT TYPE=file></FORM>

Not in IE for security considerations.
see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q266087

You need a back end script to be able to download to the file set by
the user in the form input field.

Javascript will get you only so far,

for example PHP is good and easy to use to grab the files uploaded.