Check file type when form submit?

Instead of using onsubmit, use jQuery's submit handler, and validate using some javascript like the following:

function getExtension(filename) {
  var parts = filename.split('.');
  return parts[parts.length - 1];
}

function isImage(filename) {
  var ext = getExtension(filename);
  switch (ext.toLowerCase()) {
    case 'jpg':
    case 'gif':
    case 'bmp':
    case 'png':
      //etc
      return true;
  }
  return false;
}

function isVideo(filename) {
  var ext = getExtension(filename);
  switch (ext.toLowerCase()) {
    case 'm4v':
    case 'avi':
    case 'mpg':
    case 'mp4':
      // etc
      return true;
  }
  return false;
}

$(function() {
  $('form').submit(function() {
    function failValidation(msg) {
      alert(msg); // just an alert for now but you can spice this up later
      return false;
    }

    var file = $('#file');
    var imageChosen = $('#type-1').is(':checked');
    if (imageChosen && !isImage(file.val())) {
      return failValidation('Please select a valid image');
    } else if (!imageChosen && !isVideo(file.val())) {
      return failValidation('Please select a valid video file.');
    }

    // success at this point
    // indicate success with alert for now
    alert('Valid file! Here is where you would return true to allow the form to submit normally.');
    return false; // prevent form submitting anyway - remove this in your environment
  });

});
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<form action="/gallery/create" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <label>Type:*</label>
  <label for="type-1">
     <input type="radio" checked="checked" value="1" id="type-1" name="type">Image
    </label>
  <label for="type-2">
   <input type="radio" value="2" id="type-2" name="type">Video
    </label> <br />
  <label class="itemdetailfloatL required" for="file">File:*</label>
  <input type="hidden" id="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="8388608" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE">
  <input type="file" tabindex="5" class="text-size text" id="file" name="file">
  <br/>
  <input type="submit" value="Create" id="submit" name="submit">
</form>

tested in IE8, RockMelt (based on Chrome) and Firefox 7: http://jsfiddle.net/Ngrbj/4/


Every File type has a 'type' property, for example: 'image/jpeg', 'audio/mp3' and so on...

This is an example for one way to check the type of the file by using the 'match' method (of strings):

function getFileType(file) {

  if(file.type.match('image.*'))
    return 'image';

  if(file.type.match('video.*'))
    return 'video';

  if(file.type.match('audio.*'))
    return 'audio';

  // etc...

  return 'other';
}

You can also write it the boolean way:

function isImage(

  return !!file.type.match('image.*');

}