Multiple directories in StaticFiles

The feature request is to be able to serve different directories under the same route.

The StaticFiles app only allows serving from one directory, so we can’t have have multiple apps under the same route.

Suggestions :

1- Add an add_directory method to StaticFiles app, to allow adding multiple directories to the the same StaticFiles app and it can be used like so :

static_app = StaticFiles(directory="static")
static_app.add_directory("another_static_dir")

We can also add add_directories which accepts a list of directories

• I’ve made a PR for the add_directory #626

2- Allow passing a list of directories in init, I know it’s not a good idea to change the api 😕, and to avoid that one way could be adding a kwarg directories: List[str], I’m also aware it’s not a good idea :3 (even worse) to expose two ways of doing things directory and directoriesbut the way of implementing it should be discussed, ofc if accepted.

[pomarec]

fyi, I used the following solution :

import typing

from starlette.staticfiles import PathLike, StaticFiles


class MultiStaticFiles(StaticFiles):
    def __init__(self, directories: typing.List[PathLike] = [], **kwargs) -> None:
        super().__init__(**kwargs)
        self.all_directories = self.all_directories + directories

[tomchristie]

Closing with the same rationale as https://github.com/encode/starlette/issues/1214

There’s plenty decent enough ways users can do this if they’re really keen. Eg. subclass StaticFiles and override the get_directories method.

It’s okay for us to just default to one directory + packages.