===================
The staticfiles app
===================

.. module:: django.contrib.staticfiles
   :synopsis: An app for handling static files.

``django.contrib.staticfiles`` collects static files from each of your
applications (and any other places you specify) into a single location that
can easily be served in production.

.. seealso::

    For an introduction to the static files app and some usage examples, see
    :doc:`/howto/static-files/index`. For guidelines on deploying static files,
    see :doc:`/howto/static-files/deployment`.

.. _staticfiles-settings:

Settings
========

See :ref:`staticfiles settings <settings-staticfiles>` for details on the
following settings:

* :setting:`STATIC_ROOT`
* :setting:`STATIC_URL`
* :setting:`STATICFILES_DIRS`
* :setting:`STATICFILES_STORAGE`
* :setting:`STATICFILES_FINDERS`

Management Commands
===================

``django.contrib.staticfiles`` exposes three management commands.

collectstatic
-------------

.. django-admin:: collectstatic

Collects the static files into :setting:`STATIC_ROOT`.

Duplicate file names are by default resolved in a similar way to how template
resolution works: the file that is first found in one of the specified
locations will be used. If you're confused, the :djadmin:`findstatic` command
can help show you which files are found.

On subsequent ``collectstatic`` runs (if ``STATIC_ROOT`` isn't empty), files
are copied only if they have a modified timestamp greater than the timestamp of
the file in ``STATIC_ROOT``. Therefore if you remove an application from
:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`, it's a good idea to use the :djadminopt:`--clear`
option in order to remove stale static files.

Files are searched by using the :setting:`enabled finders
<STATICFILES_FINDERS>`. The default is to look in all locations defined in
:setting:`STATICFILES_DIRS` and in the ``'static'`` directory of apps
specified by the :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` setting.

The :djadmin:`collectstatic` management command calls the
:meth:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage.post_process`
method of the :setting:`STATICFILES_STORAGE` after each run and passes
a list of paths that have been found by the management command. It also
receives all command line options of :djadmin:`collectstatic`. This is used
by the :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.CachedStaticFilesStorage`
by default.

By default, collected files receive permissions from
:setting:`FILE_UPLOAD_PERMISSIONS` and collected directories receive permissions
from :setting:`FILE_UPLOAD_DIRECTORY_PERMISSIONS`. If you would like different
permissions for these files and/or directories, you can subclass either of the
:ref:`static files storage classes <staticfiles-storages>` and specify the
``file_permissions_mode`` and/or ``directory_permissions_mode`` parameters,
respectively. For example::

    from django.contrib.staticfiles import storage

    class MyStaticFilesStorage(storage.StaticFilesStorage):
        def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
            kwargs['file_permissions_mode'] = 0o640
            kwargs['directory_permissions_mode'] = 0o760
            super(MyStaticFilesStorage, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

Then set the :setting:`STATICFILES_STORAGE` setting to
``'path.to.MyStaticFilesStorage'``.

.. versionadded:: 1.7

    The ability to override ``file_permissions_mode`` and
    ``directory_permissions_mode`` is new in Django 1.7.  Previously the file
    permissions always used :setting:`FILE_UPLOAD_PERMISSIONS` and the directory
    permissions always used :setting:`FILE_UPLOAD_DIRECTORY_PERMISSIONS`.

.. highlight:: console

Some commonly used options are:

.. django-admin-option:: --noinput

    Do NOT prompt the user for input of any kind.

.. django-admin-option:: -i <pattern>
.. django-admin-option:: --ignore <pattern>

    Ignore files or directories matching this glob-style pattern. Use multiple
    times to ignore more.

.. django-admin-option:: -n
.. django-admin-option:: --dry-run

    Do everything except modify the filesystem.

.. django-admin-option:: -c
.. django-admin-option:: --clear

    Clear the existing files before trying to copy or link the original file.

.. django-admin-option:: -l
.. django-admin-option:: --link

    Create a symbolic link to each file instead of copying.

.. django-admin-option:: --no-post-process

    Don't call the
    :meth:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage.post_process`
    method of the configured :setting:`STATICFILES_STORAGE` storage backend.

.. django-admin-option:: --no-default-ignore

    Don't ignore the common private glob-style patterns ``'CVS'``, ``'.*'``
    and ``'*~'``.

For a full list of options, refer to the commands own help by running::

   $ python manage.py collectstatic --help

findstatic
----------

.. django-admin:: findstatic

Searches for one or more relative paths with the enabled finders.

For example::

   $ python manage.py findstatic css/base.css admin/js/core.js
   Found 'css/base.css' here:
     /home/special.polls.com/core/static/css/base.css
     /home/polls.com/core/static/css/base.css
   Found 'admin/js/core.js' here:
     /home/polls.com/src/django/contrib/admin/media/js/core.js

By default, all matching locations are found. To only return the first match
for each relative path, use the ``--first`` option::

   $ python manage.py findstatic css/base.css --first
   Found 'css/base.css' here:
     /home/special.polls.com/core/static/css/base.css

This is a debugging aid; it'll show you exactly which static file will be
collected for a given path.

By setting the :djadminopt:`--verbosity` flag to 0, you can suppress the extra
output and just get the path names::

   $ python manage.py findstatic css/base.css --verbosity 0
   /home/special.polls.com/core/static/css/base.css
   /home/polls.com/core/static/css/base.css

On the other hand, by setting the :djadminopt:`--verbosity` flag to 2, you can
get all the directories which were searched::

   $ python manage.py findstatic css/base.css --verbosity 2
   Found 'css/base.css' here:
     /home/special.polls.com/core/static/css/base.css
     /home/polls.com/core/static/css/base.css
   Looking in the following locations:
     /home/special.polls.com/core/static
     /home/polls.com/core/static
     /some/other/path/static

.. versionadded:: 1.7

   The additional output of which directories were searched was added.

.. _staticfiles-runserver:

runserver
---------

.. django-admin:: runserver

Overrides the core :djadmin:`runserver` command if the ``staticfiles`` app
is :setting:`installed<INSTALLED_APPS>` and adds automatic serving of static
files and the following new options.

.. django-admin-option:: --nostatic

Use the ``--nostatic`` option to disable serving of static files with the
:doc:`staticfiles </ref/contrib/staticfiles>` app entirely. This option is
only available if the :doc:`staticfiles </ref/contrib/staticfiles>` app is
in your project's :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` setting.

Example usage::

    django-admin runserver --nostatic

.. django-admin-option:: --insecure

Use the ``--insecure`` option to force serving of static files with the
:doc:`staticfiles </ref/contrib/staticfiles>` app even if the :setting:`DEBUG`
setting is ``False``. By using this you acknowledge the fact that it's
**grossly inefficient** and probably **insecure**. This is only intended for
local development, should **never be used in production** and is only
available if the :doc:`staticfiles </ref/contrib/staticfiles>` app is
in your project's :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` setting. :djadmin:`runserver`
``--insecure`` doesn't work with
:class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.CachedStaticFilesStorage`.

Example usage::

    django-admin runserver --insecure

.. _staticfiles-storages:

Storages
========

StaticFilesStorage
------------------

.. class:: storage.StaticFilesStorage

A subclass of the :class:`~django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage`
storage backend that uses the :setting:`STATIC_ROOT` setting as the base
file system location and the :setting:`STATIC_URL` setting respectively
as the base URL.

.. method:: storage.StaticFilesStorage.post_process(paths, **options)

This method is called by the :djadmin:`collectstatic` management command
after each run and gets passed the local storages and paths of found
files as a dictionary, as well as the command line options.

The :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.CachedStaticFilesStorage`
uses this behind the scenes to replace the paths with their hashed
counterparts and update the cache appropriately.

ManifestStaticFilesStorage
--------------------------

.. versionadded:: 1.7

.. class:: storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage

A subclass of the :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage`
storage backend which stores the file names it handles by appending the MD5
hash of the file's content to the filename. For example, the file
``css/styles.css`` would also be saved as ``css/styles.55e7cbb9ba48.css``.

The purpose of this storage is to keep serving the old files in case some
pages still refer to those files, e.g. because they are cached by you or
a 3rd party proxy server. Additionally, it's very helpful if you want to
apply `far future Expires headers`_ to the deployed files to speed up the
load time for subsequent page visits.

The storage backend automatically replaces the paths found in the saved
files matching other saved files with the path of the cached copy (using
the :meth:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage.post_process`
method). The regular expressions used to find those paths
(``django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.HashedFilesMixin.patterns``)
by default covers the `@import`_ rule and `url()`_ statement of `Cascading
Style Sheets`_. For example, the ``'css/styles.css'`` file with the
content

.. code-block:: css+django

    @import url("../admin/css/base.css");

would be replaced by calling the :meth:`~django.core.files.storage.Storage.url`
method of the ``ManifestStaticFilesStorage`` storage backend, ultimately
saving a ``'css/styles.55e7cbb9ba48.css'`` file with the following
content:

.. code-block:: css+django

    @import url("../admin/css/base.27e20196a850.css");

To enable the ``ManifestStaticFilesStorage`` you have to make sure the
following requirements are met:

* the :setting:`STATICFILES_STORAGE` setting is set to
  ``'django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage'``
* the :setting:`DEBUG` setting is set to ``False``
* you use the ``staticfiles`` :ttag:`static<staticfiles-static>` template
  tag to refer to your static files in your templates
* you've collected all your static files by using the
  :djadmin:`collectstatic` management command

Since creating the MD5 hash can be a performance burden to your website
during runtime, ``staticfiles`` will automatically store the mapping with
hashed names for all processed files in a file called ``staticfiles.json``.
This happens once when you run the :djadmin:`collectstatic` management
command.

Due to the requirement of running :djadmin:`collectstatic`, this storage
typically shouldn't be used when running tests as ``collectstatic`` isn't run
as part of the normal test setup. During testing, ensure that the
:setting:`STATICFILES_STORAGE` setting is set to something else like
``'django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage'`` (the default).

.. method:: storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage.file_hash(name, content=None)

The method that is used when creating the hashed name of a file.
Needs to return a hash for the given file name and content.
By default it calculates a MD5 hash from the content's chunks as
mentioned above. Feel free to override this method to use your own
hashing algorithm.

.. _`far future Expires headers`: https://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#expires
.. _`@import`: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/cascade.html#at-import
.. _`url()`: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/syndata.html#uri
.. _`Cascading Style Sheets`: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

CachedStaticFilesStorage
------------------------

.. class:: storage.CachedStaticFilesStorage

``CachedStaticFilesStorage`` is a similar class like the
:class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage` class
but uses Django's :doc:`caching framework</topics/cache>` for storing the
hashed names of processed files instead of a static manifest file called
``staticfiles.json``. This is mostly useful for situations in which you don't
have access to the file system.

If you want to override certain options of the cache backend the storage uses,
simply specify a custom entry in the :setting:`CACHES` setting named
``'staticfiles'``. It falls back to using the ``'default'`` cache backend.

.. currentmodule:: django.contrib.staticfiles.templatetags.staticfiles

Template tags
=============

static
------

.. templatetag:: staticfiles-static

Uses the configured :setting:`STATICFILES_STORAGE` storage to create the
full URL for the given relative path, e.g.:

.. code-block:: html+django

    {% load static from staticfiles %}
    <img src="{% static "images/hi.jpg" %}" alt="Hi!" />

The previous example is equal to calling the ``url`` method of an instance of
:setting:`STATICFILES_STORAGE` with ``"images/hi.jpg"``. This is especially
useful when using a non-local storage backend to deploy files as documented
in :ref:`staticfiles-from-cdn`.

If you'd like to retrieve a static URL without displaying it, you can use a
slightly different call:

.. code-block:: html+django

    {% load static from staticfiles %}
    {% static "images/hi.jpg" as myphoto %}
    <img src="{{ myphoto }}" alt="Hi!" />

.. admonition:: Using Jinja2 templates?

    See :class:`django.template.backends.jinja2.Jinja2` for information on
    using the ``static`` tag with Jinja2.

Finders Module
==============

``staticfiles`` finders has a ``searched_locations`` attribute which is a list
of directory paths in which the finders searched. Example usage::

    from django.contrib.staticfiles import finders

    result = finders.find('css/base.css')
    searched_locations = finders.searched_locations

.. versionadded:: 1.7

The ``searched_locations`` attribute was added.

Other Helpers
=============

There are a few other helpers outside of the
:mod:`staticfiles <django.contrib.staticfiles>` app to work with static
files:

- The :func:`django.template.context_processors.static` context processor
  which adds :setting:`STATIC_URL` to every template context rendered
  with :class:`~django.template.RequestContext` contexts.

- The builtin template tag :ttag:`static` which takes a path and
  urljoins it with the static prefix :setting:`STATIC_URL`.

- The builtin template tag :ttag:`get_static_prefix` which populates a
  template variable with the static prefix :setting:`STATIC_URL` to be
  used as a variable or directly.

- The similar template tag :ttag:`get_media_prefix` which works like
  :ttag:`get_static_prefix` but uses :setting:`MEDIA_URL`.

.. _staticfiles-development-view:

Static file development view
----------------------------

.. currentmodule:: django.contrib.staticfiles

The static files tools are mostly designed to help with getting static files
successfully deployed into production. This usually means a separate,
dedicated static file server, which is a lot of overhead to mess with when
developing locally. Thus, the ``staticfiles`` app ships with a
**quick and dirty helper view** that you can use to serve files locally in
development.

.. highlight:: python

.. function:: views.serve(request, path)

This view function serves static files in development.

.. warning::

    This view will only work if :setting:`DEBUG` is ``True``.

    That's because this view is **grossly inefficient** and probably
    **insecure**. This is only intended for local development, and should
    **never be used in production**.

.. versionchanged:: 1.7

    This view will now raise an :exc:`~django.http.Http404` exception instead
    of :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured` when
    :setting:`DEBUG` is ``False``.

.. note::

    To guess the served files' content types, this view relies on the
    :py:mod:`mimetypes` module from the Python standard library, which itself
    relies on the underlying platform's map files. If you find that this view
    doesn't return proper content types for certain files, it is most likely
    that the platform's map files need to be updated. This can be achieved, for
    example, by installing or updating the ``mailcap`` package on a Red Hat
    distribution, or ``mime-support`` on a Debian distribution.

This view is automatically enabled by :djadmin:`runserver` (with a
:setting:`DEBUG` setting set to ``True``). To use the view with a different
local development server, add the following snippet to the end of your
primary URL configuration::

   from django.conf import settings
   from django.contrib.staticfiles import views

   if settings.DEBUG:
       urlpatterns += [
           url(r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', views.serve),
       ]

Note, the beginning of the pattern (``r'^static/'``) should be your
:setting:`STATIC_URL` setting.

Since this is a bit finicky, there's also a helper function that'll do this for
you:

.. function:: urls.staticfiles_urlpatterns()

This will return the proper URL pattern for serving static files to your
already defined pattern list. Use it like this::

   from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns

   # ... the rest of your URLconf here ...

   urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()

This will inspect your :setting:`STATIC_URL` setting and wire up the view
to serve static files accordingly. Don't forget to set the
:setting:`STATICFILES_DIRS` setting appropriately to let
``django.contrib.staticfiles`` know where to look for files in addition to
files in app directories.

.. warning::

    This helper function will only work if :setting:`DEBUG` is ``True``
    and your :setting:`STATIC_URL` setting is neither empty nor a full
    URL such as ``http://static.example.com/``.

    That's because this view is **grossly inefficient** and probably
    **insecure**. This is only intended for local development, and should
    **never be used in production**.

Specialized test case to support 'live testing'
-----------------------------------------------

.. class:: testing.StaticLiveServerTestCase

This unittest TestCase subclass extends :class:`django.test.LiveServerTestCase`.

Just like its parent, you can use it to write tests that involve running the
code under test and consuming it with testing tools through HTTP (e.g. Selenium,
PhantomJS, etc.), because of which it's needed that the static assets are also
published.

But given the fact that it makes use of the
:func:`django.contrib.staticfiles.views.serve` view described above, it can
transparently overlay at test execution-time the assets provided by the
``staticfiles`` finders. This means you don't need to run
:djadmin:`collectstatic` before or as a part of your tests setup.

.. versionadded:: 1.7

    ``StaticLiveServerTestCase`` is new in Django 1.7. Previously its
    functionality was provided by :class:`django.test.LiveServerTestCase`.