Difference between static STATIC URL and STATIC ROOT on Django

Question

I am confused by static root and want to clarify things   To serve static files in Django  the following should be in settings py and urls py   import os PROJECT DIR os path dirname   file      1  Absolute path to the directory in which static files should be collected  STATIC ROOT  os path join PROJECT DIR  static media      2  URL prefix for static files  STATIC URL     static     3  Additional locations for static files  STATICFILES DIRS     os path join PROJECT DIR  static           and in urls py the following lines   from django contrib staticfiles urls import staticfiles urlpatterns urlpatterns    patterns           r  static   P lt path gt             django views static serve         document root   settings STATIC ROOT       4  We also use python manage py collectstatic  Questions    Could anyone please explain the workflow to me  how should things ideally be done  As of now  I copy paste the above code snippets into their designated locations and continue making new files in the static directory and it works  In my settings STATIC ROOT  however  I have pointed to a different directory   It would be great if someone could explain the workflow of each setting  how files are collected and managed  and what would be a good practice to follow     Thanks

User · Answer

STATICFILES DIRS  You can keep the static files for your project here e g  the ones used by your templates   STATIC ROOT  leave this empty  when you do manage py collectstatic  it will search for all the static files on your system and move them here  Your static file server is supposed to be mapped to this folder wherever it is located  Check it after running collectstatic and you ll find the directory structure django has built   --------Edit----------------  As pointed out by  DarkCygnus  STATIC ROOT should point at a directory on your filesystem  the folder should be empty since it will be populated by Django      STATIC ROOT   os path join BASE DIR   staticfiles     or     STATIC ROOT     opt web project static files    --------End Edit -----------------  STATIC URL    static   is usually fine  it s just a prefix for static files

User · Answer

STATIC ROOT     The absolute path to the directory where   manage py collectstatic will collect static files for deployment    Example  STATIC ROOT   var www example com static     now the command   manage py collectstatic will copy all the static files ie in static folder in your apps  static files in all paths  to the directory  var www example com static   now you only need to serve this directory on apache or nginx  etc    STATIC URL     The URL of which the static files in STATIC ROOT directory are served by Apache or nginx  etc     Example   static  or http   static example com    If you set STATIC URL    http   static example com    then you must serve the STATIC ROOT folder  ie   var www example com static    by apache or nginx  at url  http   static example com   so that you can refer the static file   var www example com static jquery js  with  http   static example com jquery js    Now in your django-templates  you can refer it by      load static     lt script src     static  jquery js      gt  lt  script gt    which will render    lt script src  http   static example com jquery js  gt  lt  script gt

User · Answer

All the answers above are helpful but none solved my issue  In my production file  my STATIC URL was https    lt URL gt  static and I used the same STATIC URL in my dev settings py file    This causes a silent failure in  django conf urls static py    The test elif not settings DEBUG or       in prefix   picks up the      in the URL and does not add the static URL pattern  causing no static files to be found    It would be thoughtful if Django spit out an error message stating you can t use a http s     with DEBUG   True  I had to change STATIC URL to be   static

[django] Difference between static STATIC_URL and STATIC_ROOT on Django

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