Alternate to onchange event in <input type='file' />

Question

Seems really a simple thing but can't figure it out. I've been using the onchange event on <input type=file /> element and it works well. Once the user browses and selects a file, I get the path and upload it using a my custom js function.

The problem is this doesn't work if a user selects the same file twice in a row, the onchange doesn't fire (which makes sense since nothing changed) but in my case it's important for me to capture that event too, get the path and upload.

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(Similar to Clearing <input type='file' /> using jQuery, not sure if I should resolve this as duplicate)

Answer 1

You can just remove the input and create an identical one with javascript - the new one will be empty.

(edited answer to be straight to the point, comments are irrelevant now)

Answer 2

You could have the choose file button clear the contents of the input onclick, that way even even if they choose the same file your event will still trigger. Of course, then your onchange handler will have to check for blank values, but it should probably be doing something similar or more anyway if it's going to use that value to upload a file...