Django static files, and filepaths in settings.py

Here is a set of code snippets from settings.py i have changed for including static files

import os
import django
DJANGO_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(django.__file__))
SITE_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))

Dynamically setting variables for SITE_ROOT directory

    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3', 
            'NAME': os.path.join(SITE_ROOT,'data.db'),                      

where the sqlite3 database is stored it needs absolute address

            'USER': '',
            'PASSWORD': '',
            'HOST': '',                     
            'PORT': '',                     
        }
    }


STATIC_ROOT = SITE_ROOT
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

store static files here

STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(SITE_ROOT,'static'),
       )

where the templates are stored

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(SITE_ROOT,'templates'),

)

Now in templates use

 {% load static %} --at beginning
<link href="{% static "css/bootstrap.min.css"%}" rel="stylesheet" media="screen">

this is an example showing how to access "css/bootstrap.min.css" in static directory

Really appreciate the time put into the @Simeon Visser's answer, and there was some really useful information there but it wasn't entirely what I was looking for. So I asked around and have sinister_user_name from reddit to thank for this, which I thought might help someone else:

Static files have changed a fair bit in recent releases so old blogs might be a bit of a mess.

I'll give it a shot:

In your templates you can use the static_url tag and django will fill in the path for you.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL }}css/bootstrap.min.css">

It fills in the static url by looking at your settings file. STATIC_URL defaults to /static/ I think in settings? If static files end up in a weird url on your corporate web server you can just change it in settings anyway and it will reflect in all templates. So it doesn't matter if they are absolute.

When you go to deploy you fill in STATIC_ROOT in your settings, this is just the path that you've set your webserver to find the static files. Then if you run manage.py collectstatic and it will copy them to that directory. That's the only function of STATIC_ROOT I think.

I keep the template directory separate from my static directory, mainly because you want your webserver just to serve static files, while templates are processed by python. So, static files are almost not part of your application as far as the web server views them. I keep my templates and static files in separate paths just in the base directory, mainly because both are not python source files.

So my project structure would be like:

manage.py
website/settings.py
app/models.py
app/views.py
templates/base.html
static/js/jquery.js
static/css/bootstrap.css

The problem with relative paths is that they will need to change if your url scheme changes.

Optional: I found in this blog which helps to not put absolute file system paths into the settings.py which is good if your working from multiple machines eg work and home :( With the slightly different layout for 1.4 I use this at the top of my settings:

import os
import django
import manage

DJANGO_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(django.__file__))
SITE_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(manage.__file__))

instead of what they suggest (the location of settings has moved in 1.4 or 1.3) so SITE_ROOT is messed up. I think that might work. Further on down in the settings I use this:

# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'static'),
)

This will tell the development server where to find the static files. You can do the same for templates or just use the full file path.