CODEWITHSUNDEEP
django
jozxyqk
jozxyqk

Reputation: 17266

Setting up django static directory for testing/development

In production, the apache server can handle serving static files just fine. For testing on my local machine I'm using manage.py runserver.

It seems the django apps I have somehow inject some default search paths into this debug server. The browser url shows everything under /static/whatever, but those files are coming from all over the place. This is fine for testing but when moving to production I'll need them in the one path. Thankfully, manage.py collectstatic provides a handy method to copy everything to the one directory given by STATIC_ROOT in settings.py. I've set mine to os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static/') where BASE_DIR is where manage.py is.

Now I want to start adding my own stuff in static, but everything's still being hosted by these hidden search directories provided by apps under DEBUG=True. I've tried the following in urls.py:

from django.conf import settings
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()

and

import re
from django.conf import settings
if settings.DEBUG:
    static_url = re.escape(settings.STATIC_URL.lstrip('/'))
    urlpatterns += patterns('',
        (r'^%s(?P<path>.*)$' % static_url, 'django.views.static.serve', {'document_root': settings.STATIC_ROOT}),
    )

Neither have worked.

I tried providing my static directory in STATICFILES_DIRS, but get the error ImproperlyConfigured: The STATICFILES_DIRS setting should not contain the STATIC_ROOT setting. So then I tried removing my STATIC_ROOT so the path was only given in STATICFILES_DIRS. Finally I can access my files in development (still with staticfiles_urlpatterns from above).

However, I'm pretty sure removing STATIC_ROOT is not the right way to go about it. For a start, I won't be able to run collectstatic after installing other apps without manually changing everything around again. How should I be configuring my static directory for development?

Also, is there a way to turn off hosting app specific static directories so I can make sure my single static is set up correctly (but still be in development mode)?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2863

Answers (2)

jozxyqk
jozxyqk

Reputation: 17266

OK, I completely missed the point here.

  1. STATIC_ROOT is for collectstatic to pool all the static content for you. You don't add your files to here because it gets overwritten.
  2. Now for production you can get your webserver to host the directory STATIC_ROOT and point STATIC_URL to the url it can be found through the webserver.
  3. STATICFILES_DIRS allows you to add your own directories for collectstatic to search and pool to STATIC_ROOT. Then you can nicely separate static stuff for each of your apps and/or a common project static.
  4. For dev, django expects everything to be in STATICFILES_DIRS and hosts that, not STATIC_ROOT because then there would be duplicates. This makes sense for larger projects because you want to be working on the per-app files, not some blob of stuff for a website.

Upvotes: 3

Daniel Roseman
Daniel Roseman

Reputation: 599628

You're making this more complex than it needs to be. Include "static" in STATICFILES_DIRS as you are doing, for the project-level assets, but make STATIC_ROOT - ie the destination of the collectstatic command - something else, probably "staticfiles", and alias that directory to /static/ in Apache. Django will serve your assets from STATICFILES_DIRS automatically, without you even needing to add the urlpatterns.

Upvotes: 3

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