Serving static files on the file system

Not all files served by web applications are dynamically generated. JavaScript files, cascading stylesheets, and some HTML pages are usually served verbatim. This section shows several methods to serve such files.

How to do it...

There are several ways a static file can be served via HTTP:

1. To serve all static files under a directory, use http.FileServer to create a handler:

   fileHandler := http.FileServer(http.Dir("/var/www"))
   server:=http.Server{
     Addr: addr,
     Handler: fileHandler,
   }
   http.ListenAndServe()

   The above snippet will serve the files under /var/www at the root path. That is, a GET /index.html request will serve the /var/www/index.html file with Content-Type: text/html. Similarly, a GET /css/styles.css will serve /var/www/css/styles.css with Content-Type: text/css.

2. To serve all static files under a directory but with a different URL path prefix, use http.StripPrefix:

   fileHandler := http.StripPrefix...