SYNOPSIS
use Catalyst;
MyApp->setup( qw/Static::Simple/ );
+ # that's it; static content is automatically served by
+ # Catalyst, though you can configure things or bypass
+ # Catalyst entirely in a production environment
DESCRIPTION
The Static::Simple plugin is designed to make serving static content in
your application during development quick and easy, without requiring a
single line of code from you.
- It will detect static files used in your application by looking for file
- extensions in the URI. By default, you can simply load this plugin and
- it will immediately begin serving your static files with the correct
- MIME type. The light-weight MIME::Types module is used to map file
- extensions to IANA-registered MIME types.
+ This plugin detects static files by looking at the file extension in the
+ URL (such as .css or .png or .js). The plugin uses the lightweight
+ MIME::Types module to map file extensions to IANA-registered MIME types,
+ and will serve your static files with the correct MIME type directly to
+ the browser, without being processed through Catalyst.
Note that actions mapped to paths using periods (.) will still operate
properly.
- You may further tweak the operation by adding configuration options,
- described below.
+ Though Static::Simple is designed to work out-of-the-box, you can tweak
+ the operation by adding various configuration options. In a production
+ environment, you will probably want to use your webserver to deliver
+ static content; for an example see "USING WITH APACHE", below.
+
+DEFAULT BEHAVIOR
+ By default, Static::Simple will deliver all files having extensions
+ (that is, bits of text following a period (".")), *except* files having
+ the extensions "tmpl", "tt", "tt2", "html", and "xhtml". These files,
+ and all files without extensions, will be processed through Catalyst. If
+ MIME::Types doesn't recognize an extension, it will be served as
+ "text/plain".
+
+ To restate: files having the extensions "tmpl", "tt", "tt2", "html", and
+ "xhtml" *will not* be served statically by default, they will be
+ processed by Catalyst. Thus if you want to use ".html" files from within
+ a Catalyst app as static files, you need to change the configuration of
+ Static::Simple. Note also that files having any other extension *will*
+ be served statically, so if you're using any other extension for
+ template files, you should also change the configuration.
+
+ Logging of static files is turned off by default.
ADVANCED CONFIGURATION
Configuration is completely optional and is specified within
- MyApp->config->{static}. If you use any of these options, the module
+ "MyApp->config->{static}". If you use any of these options, this module
will probably feel less "simple" to you!
- Forcing directories into static mode
- Define a list of top-level directories beneath your 'root' directory
- that should always be served in static mode. Regular expressions may
- be specified using qr//.
-
- MyApp->config->{static}->{dirs} = [
- 'static',
- qr/^(images|css)/,
- ];
-
- Including additional directories (experimental!)
- You may specify a list of directories in which to search for your
- static files. The directories will be searched in order and will
- return the first file found. Note that your root directory is not
- automatically added to the search path when you specify an
- include_path. You should use MyApp->config->{root} to add it.
-
- MyApp->config->{static}->{include_path} = [
- '/path/to/overlay',
- \&incpath_generator,
- MyApp->config->{root}
- ];
+ Enabling request logging
+ Since Catalyst 5.50, logging of static requests is turned off by
+ default; static requests tend to clutter the log output and rarely
+ reveal anything useful. However, if you want to enable logging of static
+ requests, you can do so by setting "MyApp->config->{static}->{no_logs}"
+ to 0.
+
+ Forcing directories into static mode
+ Define a list of top-level directories beneath your 'root' directory
+ that should always be served in static mode. Regular expressions may be
+ specified using "qr//".
+
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{dirs} = [
+ 'static',
+ qr/^(images|css)/,
+ ];
+
+ Including additional directories
+ You may specify a list of directories in which to search for your static
+ files. The directories will be searched in order and will return the
+ first file found. Note that your root directory is not automatically
+ added to the search path when you specify an "include_path". You should
+ use "MyApp->config->{root}" to add it.
+
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{include_path} = [
+ '/path/to/overlay',
+ \&incpath_generator,
+ MyApp->config->{root}
+ ];
- With the above setting, a request for the file /images/logo.jpg will
- search for the following files, returning the first one found:
+ With the above setting, a request for the file "/images/logo.jpg" will
+ search for the following files, returning the first one found:
- /path/to/overlay/images/logo.jpg
- /dynamic/path/images/logo.jpg
- /your/app/home/root/images/logo.jpg
+ /path/to/overlay/images/logo.jpg
+ /dynamic/path/images/logo.jpg
+ /your/app/home/root/images/logo.jpg
- The include path can contain a subroutine reference to dynamically
- return a list of available directories. This method will receive the
- $c object as a parameter and should return a reference to a list of
- directories. Errors can be reported using die(). This method will be
- called every time a file is requested that appears to be a static
- file (i.e. it has an extension).
+ The include path can contain a subroutine reference to dynamically
+ return a list of available directories. This method will receive the $c
+ object as a parameter and should return a reference to a list of
+ directories. Errors can be reported using "die()". This method will be
+ called every time a file is requested that appears to be a static file
+ (i.e. it has an extension).
- For example:
+ For example:
- sub incpath_generator {
- my $c = shift;
+ sub incpath_generator {
+ my $c = shift;
- if ( $c->session->{customer_dir} ) {
- return [ $c->session->{customer_dir} ];
- } else {
- die "No customer dir defined.";
- }
+ if ( $c->session->{customer_dir} ) {
+ return [ $c->session->{customer_dir} ];
+ } else {
+ die "No customer dir defined.";
}
-
- Custom MIME types
- To override or add to the default MIME types set by the MIME::Types
- module, you may enter your own extension to MIME type mapping.
-
- MyApp->config->{static}->{mime_types} = {
- jpg => 'image/jpg',
- png => 'image/png',
- };
+ }
- Apache integration and performance
- Optionally, when running under mod_perl, Static::Simple can return
- DECLINED on static files to allow Apache to serve the file. A check
- is first done to make sure that Apache's DocumentRoot matches your
- Catalyst root, and that you are not using any custom MIME types or
- multiple roots. To enable the Apache support, you can set the
- following option.
-
- MyApp->config->{static}->{use_apache} = 1;
+ Ignoring certain types of files
+ There are some file types you may not wish to serve as static files.
+ Most important in this category are your raw template files. By default,
+ files with the extensions "tmpl", "tt", "tt2", "html", and "xhtml" will
+ be ignored by Static::Simple in the interest of security. If you wish to
+ define your own extensions to ignore, use the "ignore_extensions"
+ option:
+
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{ignore_extensions}
+ = [ qw/html asp php/ ];
- By default this option is disabled because after several benchmarks
- it appears that just serving the file from Catalyst is the better
- option. On a 3K file, Catalyst appears to be around 25% faster, and
- is 42% faster on a 10K file. My benchmarking was done using the
- following 'siege' command, so other benchmarks would be welcome!
-
- siege -u http://server/static/css/10K.css b -t 1M -c 1
-
- For best static performance, you should still serve your static
- files directly from Apache by defining a Location block similar to
- the following:
-
- <Location /static>
- SetHandler default-handler
- </Location>
+ Ignoring entire directories
+ To prevent an entire directory from being served statically, you can use
+ the "ignore_dirs" option. This option contains a list of relative
+ directory paths to ignore. If using "include_path", the path will be
+ checked against every included path.
- Debugging information
- Enable additional debugging information printed in the Catalyst log.
- This is automatically enabled when running Catalyst in -Debug mode.
-
- MyApp->config->{static}->{debug} = 1;
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{ignore_dirs} = [ qw/tmpl css/ ];
+
+ For example, if combined with the above "include_path" setting, this
+ "ignore_dirs" value will ignore the following directories if they exist:
+
+ /path/to/overlay/tmpl
+ /path/to/overlay/css
+ /dynamic/path/tmpl
+ /dynamic/path/css
+ /your/app/home/root/tmpl
+ /your/app/home/root/css
+
+ Custom MIME types
+ To override or add to the default MIME types set by the MIME::Types
+ module, you may enter your own extension to MIME type mapping.
+
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{mime_types} = {
+ jpg => 'image/jpg',
+ png => 'image/png',
+ };
+
+ Compatibility with other plugins
+ Since version 0.12, Static::Simple plays nice with other plugins. It no
+ longer short-circuits the "prepare_action" stage as it was causing too
+ many compatibility issues with other plugins.
+
+ Debugging information
+ Enable additional debugging information printed in the Catalyst log.
+ This is automatically enabled when running Catalyst in -Debug mode.
+
+ MyApp->config->{static}->{debug} = 1;
+
+USING WITH APACHE
+ While Static::Simple will work just fine serving files through Catalyst
+ in mod_perl, for increased performance, you may wish to have Apache
+ handle the serving of your static files. To do this, simply use a
+ dedicated directory for your static files and configure an Apache
+ Location block for that directory. This approach is recommended for
+ production installations.
+
+ <Location /static>
+ SetHandler default-handler
+ </Location>
+
+ Using this approach Apache will bypass any handling of these directories
+ through Catalyst. You can leave Static::Simple as part of your
+ application, and it will continue to function on a development server,
+ or using Catalyst's built-in server.
+
+INTERNAL EXTENDED METHODS
+ Static::Simple extends the following steps in the Catalyst process.
+
+ prepare_action
+ "prepare_action" is used to first check if the request path is a static
+ file. If so, we skip all other "prepare_action" steps to improve
+ performance.
+
+ dispatch
+ "dispatch" takes the file found during "prepare_action" and writes it to
+ the output.
+
+ finalize
+ "finalize" serves up final header information and displays any log
+ messages.
+
+ setup
+ "setup" initializes all default values.
SEE ALSO
Catalyst, Catalyst::Plugin::Static,
<http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/>
AUTHOR
- Andy Grundman, "andy@hybridized.org"
+ Andy Grundman, <andy@hybridized.org>
+
+CONTRIBUTORS
+ Marcus Ramberg, <mramberg@cpan.org> Jesse Sheidlower, <jester@panix.com>
THANKS
The authors of Catalyst::Plugin::Static: