How to make Django serve that file for download as opposed to trying to find a URL and View to display it

Question

I want users on the site to be able to download files whose paths are obscured so they cannot be directly downloaded.

And on the server, I know that all downloadable files reside in the folder /home/user/files/.

Is there a way to make Django serve that file for download as opposed to trying to find a URL and View to display it?

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

You can just use the built in django serve view. This is excellent for quick prototypes or one-off work, you should use something like apache or nginx in production.

from django.views.static import serve
filepath = '/some/path/to/local/file.txt'
return serve(request, os.path.basename(filepath), os.path.dirname(filepath))

Hope it helps!!

Thank you!!