Javascript: Exporting Data to a .txt file

Question

I'm new to javascript and I wanted to know if I can export data into a txt file. I can put the data in an alert but I want it to be downloaded onto the clients system as a txt file. How do I achieve this?

Answer 1

At the moment the File API: Writer is not ready, so you do not have direct interfaces to save file.

Still, you can create a link and put the text in the url.

var link = document.createElement('a');
link.href = 'data:text/plain;charset=UTF-8,' + encodeURIComponent(yourTextGoesHere);
link.innerHTML = 'Open the text file';
//set default action on link to force download, and set default filename:
link.download = 'some file name.txt';     

//now put the link somewhere in the html document:
document.body.appendChild(link);

Written by hand and not tested. Should work, but might require debugging.

Edit: added download attribute.

Answer 2

Save text

function save(text){
    var link = document.createElement('a');
    link.href = 'data:text/plain;charset=UTF-8,' + escape(text);
    link.download = 'output.txt';
    link.click();
}