How to return static files passing through a view in django?

Question

I need to return css files and js files according to specific logic. Clearly, static serve does not perform what I need. I have a view, whose render method uses logic to find the proper file, but then I have to return it. Technically, I can just read the file and stuff it into a HttpResponse object with the proper mime type, but I was wondering if there was a better strategy. (like fpassthru() in php)

Answer 1

This is what I used:

test_file = open('/home/poop/serve/test.pdf', 'rb') response = HttpResponse(content=test_file) response['Content-Type'] = 'application/pdf' response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename="%s.pdf"' \                                   % 'whatever' return response 

Answer 2

What webserver software are you using?

At least for Apache and NginX, there is a module enabling you to use the X-SendFile HTTP header. The NginX website says Lighty can do this, too.

In your wrapper view:

...  abspath = '/most_secret_directory_on_the_whole_filesystem/protected_filename.css'  response = HttpResponse() response['X-Sendfile'] = abspath  response['Content-Type'] = 'mimetype/submimetype' # or let your webserver auto-inject such a header field # after auto-recognition of mimetype based on filename extension  response['Content-Length'] = <filesize> # can probably be left out if you don't want to hassle with getting it off disk. # oh, and: # if the file is stored via a models.FileField, you just need myfilefield.size  response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename=%s.css' \     % 'whatever_public_filename_you_need_it_to_be'  return response 

Then you can connect the view via http://mysite.com/url_path/to/serve_hidden_css_file/.

You can use it anytime you need to do something upon a file being requested that should not be directly accessible to users, like limiting who can access it, or counting requests to it for stats, or whatever.

For Apache: http://tn123.ath.cx/mod_xsendfile/
For NginX: http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxXSendfile