How can I handle static files with Python webapp2 in Heroku?

Question

I am now migrating my small Google App Engine app to Heroku platform. I don't actually use Bigtable, and webapp2 reduces my migration costs a lot.

Now I'm stuck on handling the static files.

Is there any good practices? If so, lead me there please.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT

Well, I'm now using paste for my WSGI server. And paste.StaticURLParser() should be what I need to implement static file handler. However I have no idea how to integrate it with webapp2.WSGIApplication(). Could anyone help me?

Maybe I need to override webapp2.RequestHandler class to load paste.StaticURLParser() properly;

import os
import webapp2
from paste import httpserver

class StaticFileHandler(webapp2.RequestHandler):
    u"""Static file handler"""

    def __init__(self):
        # I guess I need to override something here to load
        # `paste.StaticURLParser()` properly.
        pass

app = webapp2.WSGIApplication([(r'/static', StaticFileHandler)], debug=True)


def main():
    port = int(os.environ.get('PORT', 5000))
    httpserver.serve(app, host='0.0.0.0', port=port)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Any helps would be appreciated!

Answer 1

Below is how I got this working.

I'm guessing that relying on a cascade app isn't the most efficient option, but it works well enough for my needs.

from paste.urlparser import StaticURLParser
from paste.cascade import Cascade
from paste import httpserver
import webapp2
import socket


class HelloWorld(webapp2.RequestHandler):
    def get(self):
        self.response.write('Hello cruel world.')

# Create the main app
web_app = webapp2.WSGIApplication([
    ('/', HelloWorld),
])

# Create an app to serve static files
# Choose a directory separate from your source (e.g., "static/") so it isn't dl'able
static_app = StaticURLParser("static/")

# Create a cascade that looks for static files first, then tries the webapp
app = Cascade([static_app, web_app])

def main():
    httpserver.serve(app, host=socket.gethostname(), port='8080')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 2

this makes your code more friendly to deploy since you can use nginx to serve your static media in production.

def main():
  application = webapp2.WSGIApplication(routes, config=_config, debug=DEBUG)
  if DEBUG:
    # serve static files on development
    static_media_server = StaticURLParser(MEDIA_ROOT)
    app = Cascade([static_media_server, application])
    httpserver.serve(app, host='127.0.0.1', port='8000')
else:
    httpserver.serve(application, host='127.0.0.1', port='8000')