[SOLVED] Trying to return a static file in web.py but getting "not found" error message

Trying to return a static file in web.py but getting "not found" error message

I have a web.py server hosted on pythonanywhere.com doing some handy things with python.

Now I'd like to just serve a straightforward html file from the same server i.e. just return the contents of a static html file to the client

The comments/answers below state that it should be possible, out of the box, to serve static files in the static directory, located in the same directory as the main python file which contains the following :

import web

urls = (
    '/', 'hello'
)

app = web.application(urls, globals())

class hello:
    def GET(self):
        return 'Hello, Joe'

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

The server above works fine, when I go to http://myhost/ it displays "Hello , Joe". The directory static exists and contains a file small.jpg but when I try the url http://myhost/static/small.jpg it gives me "not found"

Previous text of question up to Nov 9th 2022 is below :

original question title : Trying to return a html file in web.py but getting "No template named ....." error message

So I've looked at the web.py documentation on serving static files and templating and I think the following code should work :

import web
render = web.template.render('static/')
# have also tried render = web.template.render('/full/path/to/static/')
urls = (
    '/getlatlongEIRCODE', 'getlatlongEIRCODE', #other stuff
    '/getlatlongGOOGLE', 'getlatlongGOOGLE',    #other stuff
    '/getmonthlyPV', 'getmonthlyPV',   #other stuff
    '/Tomas', 'Tomas',
)

class Tomas:
    def GET(self):
        return render.Tomas()

I have created a folder static at the same level as my file above (which works fine for the other scripts) and i have created a file Tomas.html in the static folder containing

<h1>Help me</h1>

However I get an error message when I go to https://example.com/Tomas

<class 'AttributeError'> at /Tomas
No template named Tomas

P.S. From the static files page it seems to say I should just be able to put the Tomas.html file in a folder called "static" and then access is via https://example.com/static/Tomas.html but that is not working (it returns "not found")

Solution

The case of the disappearing /static/ directory was related to the fact that I'm hosting on pythonanywhere.com

Even though the web.py documentation says that the /static/ folder is plugged in by default, that's not the case in pythonanywhere and you need to expressly make the link between the url http://yourhost/static/ and /path/to/static in the Web part of the dashboard.