django-file-serve-view

This small class-based view allows you to serve static files via Django.

A common use-case would be have a "downloads" section of your website, but the downloads are only available to certain users, i.e. where user.is_authenticated == True and, optionally, satisfy other criteria of your choosing.

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To install:

• pip install django-file-serve-view
• Add fileserveview to your INSTALLED_APPS within settings.py.

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Example #1: To serve file a file anyone can access, you can do something like this in your urls.py:

    path('robots.txt', FileServeView.as_view(
        authenticated_user_only=False,
        file=os.path.join(settings.STATIC_ROOT, 'robots.txt'),
        is_download=False
    )),

Yes, I'm aware this is not the most efficient method of serving a robots file, but it illustrates the point

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Example #2: To serve a file only authenticated users can download, try:

    path('my-special-download', FileServeView.as_view(
        file=os.path.join(
            settings.BASE_DIR,
            '/path/to/get-rich-quick.pdf'
        ),
    )),

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Example #3: To serve files based on a URL, you can extend the class as with some code such as:

    from fileserveview.views import FileServeView
    from myfiles.models import MyFile

    class MyDownloads(FileServeView):
        def get_file(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
            id = kwargs['id']
            slug = kwargs['slug']
            f = MyFile.objects.filter(id=id).filter(slug=slug).first()
            if f is not None:
                self.file = f.path

                # maybe we want to show PDFs in the browser
                if f.filetype == 'pdf':
                    self.download = False

                # who can see this file
                if not request.user.can_download:
                    self.has_permission = False

It is likely the get_file() method is the only one you'd ever need to override with custom code.

Then add something like this to your urls.py:

    path('downloads/<int:id>/<slug:slug>', MyDownloads.as_view()),

I trust it is obvious that the above example is just an example. In this case you still need to create the MyFile model, whatever it may look like, and adjust the user Model to have a "can_download" attribute.

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Available parameters:

• authenticated_user_only
  Default: True
  Does the visitor need to be authenticated (logged in) to see this file.

• content_type
  Default: None
  The MIME type of the file. If not provided, it is calculated based on this list: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/MIME_types/Complete_list_of_MIME_types. Alternatively, override the get_content_type() method.

• download_filename
  Default: None
  An optional 'friendly' filename for the file sent to the user. For example, on your disk, the file may be "9e41fe35-cbb1-49b0-9e70-4ada17df7252", but the user's copy should be called "get-rich-quick.pdf"

• file
  Default: None
  The path to the file to be downloaded, e.g. "/path/to/my-file.pdf"

• has_permission
  Default: True
  If set to False, the user will see an 403 'Forbidden' error instead of the requested file. See "Example #3" above.

• is_download
  Default: True
  By default the file is sent to the browser as an "attachment", i.e. a file sent to their "Downloads" folder. By setting this to False, the file is displayed in the browser (if the browser understands it)

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To change the error messages, override the error401(), error403() and error404() methods. See the source code for details.