Provided by: libcatalyst-plugin-static-simple-perl_0.33-1_all 
NAME
Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple - Make serving static pages painless.
SYNOPSIS
package MyApp;
use Catalyst qw/ Static::Simple /;
MyApp->setup;
# that's it; static content is automatically served by Catalyst
# from the application's root directory, though you can configure
# things or bypass Catalyst entirely in a production environment
#
# one caveat: the files must be served from an absolute path
# (i.e. /images/foo.png)
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.
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.
If the plugin can not find the file, the request is dispatched to your application
instead. This means you are responsible for generating a 404 error if your applicaton can
not process the request:
# handled by static::simple, not dispatched to your application
/images/exists.png
# static::simple will not find the file and let your application
# handle the request. You are responsible for generating a file
# or returning a 404 error
/images/does_not_exist.png
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 BEHAVIOUR
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->{Plugin::Static::Simple}". If you use any of these options, this module
will probably feel less "simple" to you!
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->{Plugin::Static::Simple}->{logging}" to 1.
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(
'Plugin::Static::Simple' => {
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(
'Plugin::Static::Simple' => {
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:
/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).
For example:
sub incpath_generator {
my $c = shift;
if ( $c->session->{customer_dir} ) {
return [ $c->session->{customer_dir} ];
} else {
die "No customer dir defined.";
}
}
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(
'Plugin::Static::Simple' => {
ignore_extensions => [ qw/html asp php/ ],
},
);
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.
MyApp->config(
'Plugin::Static::Simple' => {
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(
'Plugin::Static::Simple' => {
mime_types => {
jpg => 'image/jpg',
png => 'image/png',
},
},
);
Controlling caching with Expires header
The files served by Static::Simple will have a Last-Modified header set, which allows some
browsers to cache them for a while. However if you want to explicitly set an Expires
header, such as to allow proxies to cache your static content, then you can do so by
setting the "expires" config option.
The value indicates the number of seconds after access time to allow caching. So a value
of zero really means "don't cache at all", and any higher values will keep the file around
for that long.
MyApp->config(
'Plugin::Static::Simple' => {
expires => 3600, # Caching allowed for one hour.
},
);
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(
'Plugin::Static::Simple' => {
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
directly. 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 /myapp/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.
In practice, your Catalyst application is probably (i.e. should be) structured in the
recommended way (i.e., that generated by bootstrapping the application with the
"catalyst.pl" script, with a main directory under which is a "lib/" directory for module
files and a "root/" directory for templates and static files). Thus, unless you break up
this structure when deploying your app by moving the static files to a different location
in your filesystem, you will need to use an Alias directive in Apache to point to the
right place. You will then need to add a Directory block to give permission for Apache to
serve these files. The final configuration will look something like this:
Alias /myapp/static /filesystem/path/to/MyApp/root/static
<Directory /filesystem/path/to/MyApp/root/static>
allow from all
</Directory>
<Location /myapp/static>
SetHandler default-handler
</Location>
If you are running in a VirtualHost, you can just set the DocumentRoot location to the
location of your root directory; see Catalyst::Engine::Apache2::MP20.
PUBLIC METHODS
serve_static_file $file_path
Will serve the file located in $file_path statically. This is useful when you need to
autogenerate them if they don't exist, or they are stored in a model.
package MyApp::Controller::User;
sub curr_user_thumb : PathPart("my_thumbnail.png") {
my ( $self, $c ) = @_;
my $file_path = $c->user->picture_thumbnail_path;
$c->serve_static_file($file_path);
}
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.
DEPRECATIONS
The old style of configuration using the 'static' config key was deprecated in version
0.30. A warning will be issued if this is used, and the contents of the config at this key
will be merged with the newer 'Plugin::Static::Simple' key.
Be aware that if the 'include_path' key under 'static' exists at all, it will be merged
with any content of the same key under 'Plugin::Static::Simple'. Be careful not to set
this to a non-arrayref, therefore.
SEE ALSO
Catalyst, Catalyst::Plugin::Static, <http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/>
AUTHOR
Andy Grundman, <andy@hybridized.org>
CONTRIBUTORS
Marcus Ramberg, <mramberg@cpan.org>
Jesse Sheidlower, <jester@panix.com>
Guillermo Roditi, <groditi@cpan.org>
Florian Ragwitz, <rafl@debian.org>
Tomas Doran, <bobtfish@bobtfish.net>
Justin Wheeler (dnm)
Matt S Trout, <mst@shadowcat.co.uk>
Toby Corkindale, <tjc@wintrmute.net>
THANKS
The authors of Catalyst::Plugin::Static:
Sebastian Riedel
Christian Hansen
Marcus Ramberg
For the include_path code from Template Toolkit:
Andy Wardley
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2005 - 2011 the Catalyst::Plugin::Static::Simple "AUTHOR" and "CONTRIBUTORS"
as listed above.
LICENSE
This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl itself.