Django: path to static file is wrong in generated HTML

Question

I have some javascript that I would like to run on a particular page of a Django site I am building. In the template I currently have: <script type='text/javascript' src='{% static "/home_page/github_repos.js" %}'></script>

The HTML that is generated by this is: http://localhost:8000/home_page/github_repos.js

The problem is that I have the javascript in /static/home_page/.

If I hardcode in the path as: <script type='text/javascript' src='static/home_page/github_repos.js'></script>

Everything works fine.

However, I am getting odd behavior that I do not understand:

If, in the template I set the path like this: <script type='text/javascript' src='{% static "static/home_page/github_repos.js" %}'></script>

The HTML generate has a src attribute of /static/static/home_page/github_repos.js

The part that is really throwing me off is that if I do not put /static/ at the front of the src when using the template tags (like the first example I give), /static/ is not added, however, if I do add /static/ at the front, it gets added. I need /static/ added to the front of the src attribute, but only once.

Some relevant information: My home_page app resolves to '/' as the url, so localhost:8000/ gets you to the home page.

I have included'django.contrib.staticfiles' in my installed apps

Finally, STATIC_URL = '/static/'

Is this problem occurring because my home_page app resolves to the root address of localhost:8000/?

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

This issue is because the path in the static tag should be relative to the static directory. From the docs:

Uses the configured STATICFILES_STORAGE storage to create the full URL for the given relative path

You're using an absolute path. Instead, you should use:

{% static "home_page/github_repos.js" %}

Note the omission of the leading forward slash.