django/docs/ref/views.txt

==============
Built-in Views
==============

.. module:: django.views
   :synopsis: Django's built-in views.

Several of Django's built-in views are documented in
:doc:`/topics/http/views` as well as elsewhere in the documentation.

Serving files in development
----------------------------

.. function:: static.serve(request, path, document_root, show_indexes=False)

There may be files other than your project's static assets that, for
convenience, you'd like to have Django serve for you in local development.
The :func:`~django.views.static.serve` view can be used to serve any directory
you give it. (This view is **not** hardened for production use and should be
used only as a development aid; you should serve these files in production
using a real front-end webserver).

The most likely example is user-uploaded content in :setting:`MEDIA_ROOT`.
``django.contrib.staticfiles`` is intended for static assets and has no
built-in handling for user-uploaded files, but you can have Django serve your
:setting:`MEDIA_ROOT` by appending something like this to your URLconf::

    from django.conf import settings

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

    if settings.DEBUG:
        urlpatterns += patterns('',
            url(r'^media/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {
                'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT,
            }),
       )

Note, the snippet assumes your :setting:`MEDIA_URL` has a value of
``'/media/'``. This will call the :func:`~django.views.static.serve` view,
passing in the path from the URLconf and the (required) ``document_root``
parameter.

Since it can become a bit cumbersome to define this URL pattern, Django
ships with a small URL helper function :func:`~django.conf.urls.static.static`
that takes as parameters the prefix such as :setting:`MEDIA_URL` and a dotted
path to a view, such as ``'django.views.static.serve'``. Any other function
parameter will be transparently passed to the view.