Submit an <input type="file" /> using jQuery $.post

Question

I have a <div/> tag which contains a file upload <input id="file" type="file"/> tag. I want to post the contents of the input tag to a php page using $.ajax() or $.post() but how do I grab the contents of the input tag having its type as "file"? so I can submit it using the jQuery ajax functions?

Note: My code doesn't have a <form/> tag yet. I am not sure if its mandatory to upload files. Also i've seen some workarounds using <iframe> I want to know if this can be done otherwise.

I don't want to use any plugins to do this.

Answer 1

A byte stream can't be part of an asynchronous request.

In other words, you can't send data using AJAX approaches.