살인!
golang
Disclaimer: this is old content that’s horribly out of date and possibly very incorrect. I’ve
archived it here for historic purposes only. It’s smelly, most likely not relevant, and I was still very
much learning the language.
One feature of Go web applications I struggled with early on was how to serve my static (css, js, images, etc…)
content. Here’s the setup that ended up working for me!
My working GOPATH directory structure:
- /src
- /webapp
- webapp.go - my go web application source
- /static
- /img
- test.gif - static image file I want to render in the browser
- /img
- /webapp
The goal, when done, will be for the following url to return the test.gif test image,
assuming that the web application is listening on port 17901:
http://localhost:17901/static/img/test.gif
webapp.go
Here’s what webapp.go looks like before adding in static file support:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"net/http"
)
func main() {
http.HandleFunc("/", homeHandler)
panic(http.ListenAndServe(":17901", nil))
}
func homeHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
fmt.Fprintf(w, "<html><head></head><body><h1>Welcome Home!</h1></body></html>")
}
This really is about as basic as it gets. A simple Go web application that only responds to root requests.
Point your browser to
http://localhost:17901
and you should see a big Welcome Home! However, if you try the following:
http://localhost:17901/static/img/test.gif
you should be greeted with a 404. Lets add static file support!
Adding Static Files
Add the following below your home handler:
http.HandleFunc("/static/", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
http.ServeFile(w, r, r.URL.Path[1:])
})
Couple things worth noting here. This is using the net/http package’s ServeFile function to serve our content.
Effectively anything that makes a request starting with the /static/ path will be handled by this function.
One thing I found I had to do in order for the request to be handled correctly was trim the leading ‘/’ using:
r.URL.Path[1:]
Also note that this will be looking for the requested file in a static folder relative to the executing application
i.e. just like my folder structure detailed above. If you want to move your static folder elsewhere you’ll need
to modify the ServeFile call accordingly. Now, open up your browser and lets try loading our image again:
http://localhost:17901/static/img/test.gif
You should now see your file image delivered directly to your browser! Adding stylesheets, scripts, etc.
will all work the same way now that we have this working.
Tidying Up
Lets modify our home page markup to serve up an anchor that will, when clicked, load up our test image.
Here’s the final code for webapp.go:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"net/http"
)
func main() {
http.HandleFunc("/", homeHandler)
http.HandleFunc("/static/", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
http.ServeFile(w, r, r.URL.Path[1:])
})
panic(http.ListenAndServe(":17901", nil))
}
func homeHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
fmt.Fprintf(w, "<html><head></head><body><h1>Welcome Home!</h1>
<a href=\"/static/img/test.gif\">Show Image!</a></body></html>")
}
If you run the above you’ll see you now have an anchor on your home page that, when clicked, should load
the same test image as we loaded previously directly!
