Question

I am writing a Django based website, but need to serve a a simple text file. Is the correct way to so this by putting it in the static directory and bypassing Django?

Answer 1

If the file is static (not generated by the django app) then you can put it in the static directory.

If the content of this file is generated by Django then you can return it in a HttpResponse with text/plain as mimetype.

content = 'any string generated by django'
return HttpResponse(content, content_type='text/plain')

You can also give a name to the file by setting the Content-Disposition of the response.

filename = "my-file.txt"
content = 'any string generated by django'
response = HttpResponse(content, content_type='text/plain')
response['Content-Disposition'] = 'attachment; filename={0}'.format(filename)
return response