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What Does Django static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT) Actually DO?

I am using Django 2.2. From the Django Managing static files documentation:
If you use django.contrib.staticfiles as explained above, runserver
will do this automatically when DEBUG is set to True. If you don’t
have django.contrib.staticfiles in INSTALLED_APPS, you can still
manually serve static files using the django.views.static.serve()
view.
This is not suitable for production use! For some common deployment
strategies, see Deploying static files.
For example, if your STATIC_URL is defined as /static/, you can do
this by adding the following snippet to your urls.py:
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static
urlpatterns = [
# ... the rest of your URLconf goes here ...
] + static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)
Note
This helper function works only in debug mode and only if the given
prefix is local (e.g. /static/) and not a URL (e.g.
http://static.example.com/).
Also this helper function only serves the actual STATIC_ROOT folder;
it doesn’t perform static files discovery like
django.contrib.staticfiles.
My Interpretation
static is a helper function that serves files from the STATIC_ROOT during development (is this True?)
static only works when debug = True
static only works with a local prefix like STATIC_URL = '/static/'
When DEBUG is set to True and I use and setup the staticfiles app as explained in the documentation, if I do python manage.py runserver to start the local server, the serving of static files will be handled automatically (true??)
My Questions
What EXACTLY does adding static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT) to your project's urls.py DO?
Is it true that static serves static files locally from the STATIC_ROOT directory? To test this theory, after running collectstatic, I then deleted the static directories to see if the static files still load fine (from the STATIC_ROOT) and they DON'T! Why?
How can I verify that Django is loading the static files from my STATIC_ROOT location... and not the static directories in my project and apps??
Why is adding static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT) to urlpatterns necessary if Django serves static files automatically (mentioned in documentation)?
Example
settings.py
DEBUG = True
...
INSTALLED_APPS = [
'django.contrib.admin',
...
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
'puppies.apps.PuppiesConfig'
]
...
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static"),
]
STATIC_ROOT = 'c:/lkdsjfkljsd_cdn'
In all my templates, I'm using {% load static %}.
Then I do: python manage.py collectstatic
At this point, it doesn't seem to matter if I have the below in my urls.py or not - my static files still load BUT I don't know if they're coming from my project's static directories or my STATIC_ROOT (c:/lkdsjfkljsd_cdn):
if settings.DEBUG is True:
urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)
Lastly, if I delete those static directories in my project, all css, js and images don't work which leads me to believe that my Django project is loading static files from my project's static directories, NOT the STATIC_ROOT.
So, again, how can I tell Django to load the static files from my STATIC_ROOT location... and not the static directories in my project and apps?? OR, do I misunderstand that Django isn't supposed to load files from my STATIC_ROOT location locally?
*Edit (adding HTML image)

I think you are mixing up few things. Let me clarify.
static:
As per documentation, it provides URL pattern for serving static file. If you go to the implementation, then you will see:
return [
re_path(r'^%s(?P<path>.*)$' % re.escape(prefix.lstrip('/')), view, kwargs=kwargs),
]
What it does is, it removes forward slash from left of the prefix(ie converts /static/ to static/), and then there is a view(which is serve) who does the pulling files.
serve:
This function does the serving files. It will serve files from a document root.
runserver:
runserver command runs the django development server. If you have django.contrib.staticfiles installed in INSTALLED_APPS, then it will automatically serve static files. If you don't want to serve static, then use runserver --nostatic. collectstatic or STATIC_ROOT has no relation to this command.
collectstatic:
This command collects all static files from different STATIC_DIRS, and put them in folder which is defined by STATIC_ROOT. collectstatic is very useful in production deployment, when you are using a reverse proxy server like NGINX or Apache etc. NGINX/Apache/Varnish uses that folder (where collectstatic stored the static files) as root and serve static from it. It is not recommended to use runserver in production. You can use gunicorn/uwsgi to serve django. But gunicorn/uwsgi does not serve static files, hence using reverse proxy server to serve static files.
finally:
To answer your questions:
No you don't have to put that in your code, unless you are not adding django.contrib.staticfiles in your INSTALLED_APPS.
No
You don't need to. STATIC_ROOT is used for different purpose
It is not. But for serving MEDIA files, you can add the following pattern:
if settings.DEBUG:
urlpatterns += [
re_path(r'^media/(?P<path>.*)$', serve, {
'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT,
}),
]
In production, media files should be served by reverse proxy server as well.

Static file issue when deploying an Django app

I understand there are some existing problems/answers about loading static files in production.
However, my case is somehow different. My Django app not is deployed as the main app of my website (not in the public_html folder in the server), but an additional app (in a folder outside public_html). The server folder directory is like this
home/myaccount/
├── public_html
| └── static (not exist, location 1)
├── mydjango
└── static (generated by collectstatic, location 2)
└── css, fonts etc.
In my settings.py, STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static/') and STATIC_URL = '/static/'.
Currently, the browser will look for static files in the non-existing location 1, i.e., www.mypage.com/static/..., instead of location 2. 404 errors return.
My question is that how I can change STATIC_ROOT and STATIC_URL or other settings to make the browser look for location 2 instead of location 1?

If you are using Linux server then an easier solution is to create a symbolic link of location 2 static folder in location 1.
ln -s /home/myaccount/mydjango/static /home/myaccount/public_html/static
Another solution can be to create STATIC_ROOT path to point to public_html folder.

Why gunicorn cannot find static files?

Running Django dev server has no problem: 'python manage.py runserver 9000'
But if use gunicorn, it complains:
'http://innovindex.com/pubmed/static/js/jquery-3.2.1.min.js '
Why gunicorn cannot find a local jquery but Django can?
The settings are:
settings.py (seems not related):
STATIC_URL = '/pubmed/static/'
in '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/django'
location /static {
alias /home/django/innovindex/pubmed/static/;
}
And my app looks like this:
/home/django/innovindex
is where the 'manage.py' sits.
THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!

From Deploying static files in the Django documentation, you must run the collectstatic command in addition to setting the STATIC_ROOT setting.
First make sure that you're STATIC_ROOT is set to the correct path that matches your nginx config:
STATIC_ROOT = '/home/django/innovindex/pubmed/static/'
Note that this is an absolute path.
Then run:
python manage.py collectstatic
in your project directory.
This will copy all of your static files into /home/django/innovindex/pubmed/static/

I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out until I found that the below must be in your main urls.py. Just add those two lines.
from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
# ...
urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()

django collectstatic does not exclude external folder

I located my client project folder and django project folder under the root folder separately. I configured django settings.py to contain client's app folder to serve in development and dist folder to be gathered by collectstatic
STATICFILES_DIRS = [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "..", "Client/app"), # in development
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "..", "Client/dist"), # to be gathered by collectstatic
]
Client/app contains original js/css/html files for development and
Client/dist contains concatenated and uglified files for production.
Because Client/app folder is only for development, I want to exclude the folder when I use collectstaic command.
However, collectstatic -i app does not exclude Client/app folder. I tried
collectstatic -i Client/app
collectstatic -i ../Client/app
collectstatic -i app*
but, nothing did work.
How can I exclude folder outside django directory?

You would not do that normally. You would define a different STATICFILES_DIR depending on what environment you run.
Very basic idea:
if DEBUG:
STATICFILES_DIRS = [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "..", "Client/app")]
else:
STATICFILES_DIRS = [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "..", "Client/dist")]
Instead of relying on the DEBUG setting though, I'd recommend you use a separate config file for each. You then choose which to run when you invoke Django.
For instance, assuming this file tree:
settings/
├ __init__.py # empty
├ dev.py
└ prod.py
…you'd start Django this way:
export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="settings.dev"
./manage.py runserver
To avoid repeating shared configuration, create a common.py and import it from both dev.py and prod.py, using from settings.common import * (probably the only use case where it's permissible to import *).
Though it does not technically answer your question, I think this is a cleaner approach to the wider problem of handling environment-specific configuration.

More Django static 404 issues - paired with ember

I've seen lots of different posts regarding the Django static file issues. Unfortunately, none of them seem to help me. My django admin css is fine, however static files are giving my a 404 error. Here is a description of what my problem:
In settings.py:
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = '/Users/me/develop/ember/myproj/static/'
In urls.py:
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
...
] + static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)
My project directory:
> static
> myproj
> app
> templates
> ember.hbs
> img
> test.jpg
Inside my ember.hbs I reference the test.jpg, but I get a 404 error. It's weird because I can actually pull up the image using:
file:///Users/me/develop/ember/proj/static/myproj/img/test.jpg
I have no idea what to do to fix this, I've tried using the STATICFILES_DIRS method mentioned here: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/howto/static-files/
but nothing seems to be working.
Thanks in advance!
More information: Django 1.8 and Ember-CLI.
I'm hosting the ember project within the static dir.
I'm running python manage.py runserver and running django on port 8000 at the same time as running ember s and running the application on port 4200. I'm using CORS-headers (https://github.com/ottoyiu/django-cors-headers/) to allow cross-site calls on development.

Static files will be discovered in "apps" that you create (found in INSTALLED_APPS) or in additional directories that you specify in STATICFILES_DIRS.
Let's say I did:
django-admin.py startproject myproject
And then:
cd myproject
./manage.py startapp myapp
mkdir myapp/static
mkdir myproject/static
Would give you a directory structure that looks something like
/Users/me/develop/myproject/
> myapp/
> migrations/
> static/
> __init__.py
> admin.py
> models.py
> tests.py
> views.py
> myproject/
> static/
> __init__.py
> settings.py
> urls.py
> wsgi.py
> manage.py
And then in settings.py you add "myapp" to INSTALLED_APPS.
In this structure, myapp/static/ files will be automatically discovered by Django because it is an installed app with a static directory. However, myproject/static/ files will NOT be discovered automatically because "myproject" is not in INSTALLED_APPS (and it shouldn't be).
This is because of the default STATICFILES_FINDERS setting, which is:
STATICFILES_FINDERS = [
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
]
The first finder, AppDirectoriesFinder, scans the directories of all of your INSTALLED_APPS, and discovers any "static" folders they might contain.
The second finder, FileSystemFinder, scans extra directories that you specify in STATICFILES_DIRS, which is an empty list by default.
So if you want those files in /Users/me/develop/myproject/myproject/static/ to be discovered (as you probably do), you can add this to your settings.py:
from os import pardir
from os.path import abspath, dirname, join
# Get the root directory of our project
BASE_DIR = abspath(join(dirname(__file__), pardir))
# Add our project static folder for discovery
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
# /Users/me/develop/myproject/myproject/static/
join(BASE_DIR, 'myproject', 'static'),
)
Now, all of this is separate from STATIC_ROOT, which is a place where all static files are copied when you run ./manage.py collectstatic. For projects just starting out, this is usually in the project root folder: /Users/develop/me/myproject/static/
So we would add, in settings.py:
# /Users/me/develop/myproject/static/
STATIC_ROOT = join(BASE_DIR, 'static')
But this is only really used in production—it's a way to compile all of your static assets into a single spot, and then point /static/ at it with your server (e.g. NGINX).
During development, you can skip collectstatic altogether, and have Django discover and serve your static assets on the fly. Django provides a "serve" view to do this in django.contrib.staticfiles.views.serve.
Try this in your urls.py:
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls import include, url
from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.staticfiles.views import serve
admin.autodiscover()
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
]
if settings.DEBUG:
urlpatterns += [
url(r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', serve),
]
In your example, you are asking Django to serve files from STATIC_ROOT, which is also fine, but requires you to run ./manage.py collectstatic first, and every time your static assets change—which can be a hassle.

Ember and Django really shouldn't live in the same project. They are completely different frameworks with different tooling.
Think of your Django project as the backend application that serves an API. Think of your Ember project as one of possibly many clients that will consume your API. Others might include mobile applications, partner services, and so on.
When I start a new project that is going to use Django and Ember, I start a Django project called "myproject":
django-admin.py startproject myproject
And separately, an Ember project called "myproject-web":
ember new myproject-web
In development, I'll have two tabs open in Terminal.
First tab:
cd myproject
./manage.py runserver
Second tab:
cd myproject-web
ember serve
In production, I'll have two different servers, one at app.myproject.com that serves the Django application, and another one at myproject.com that serves the Ember application.
Later on, I might start a Swift project in a repository called "myproject-ios", and a Java project called "myproject-android". You get the idea.

In order to serve the static files into your django project you just need to add these lines to your `settings.py
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_PATH = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static')
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
STATIC_PATH,
)
and then in the main stucture of your project dictory needs to be like
>Project_dir
>App_dir
>static_dir
>templates
>manage.py
place your css, js, and other static contents into your static_dir