Django media URLs in CSS files

Question

In django templates, it's common to do the following:

<img src="{{ MEDIA_URL }}/img/someImage.jpg">

How would you accomplish this in a CSS file which is not served as a template?

.someClass {
    /* can't do this this */
    background: url("{{ MEDIA_URL }}/img/someImage.jpg");        
    /* either this */
    background: url("http://media.domain.com/img/someImage.jpg");
    /* or this */
    background: url("/django_static_media/img/someImage.jpg");
    /* can't do both... what to do? */
}

I need the ability to serve my files either from the media subdomain, or during offline work and serve them directly as a django static view. But CSS files are a problem since they are not processed as templates and I cannot use the MEDIA_URL context variable.

What's the solution?

Edit: I should note that the problem arises since my static media files are in fact located on a separate media sub-domain, thus negating the use of relative paths. Got it, thanks!

Answer 1

Where is your css file served from? This usually isn't a problem as a common media structure such as:

media/
    images/
    css/
    js/

(or similar) allows for relative file paths for images, eg:

background: url('../images/foo.png');

If you're not prepared to change your media folder structure to accommodate relative file paths, you may have no alternative but to overwrite css declarations from within the template, using a secondary css file when offline:

{% if DEBUG %}
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ MEDIA_URL }}css/offline-mode.css" />
{% endif %}

Of course the first option is much tidier.

Answer 2

Sorry, you won't like the answer.

I've got the same problem:

There is no easy way to do this with static-served CSS files.

What I do:

• debug server, work locally, media served locally
• production server is hosted out somewhere commercial w/media on Amazon S3
• settings.py file auto sets MEDIA_URL (DEBUG, etc.) via hostname check (to differentiate production vs. local/home/debug)
• HTML files all have css links with {{MEDIA_URL}} (+RequestContext contexts for views)
• I like absolute path names, so an "update_s3" script: (1) alters each css file is temporarily to fix 'url("/media' to 'url("s3.mydomain.com/media' and (2) updates/uploads my /media directory to Amazon S3

I then go to production and do an svn update & touch the WSGI file & validate

Answer 3

Is using relative paths (for image files) in your CSS files not a viable option for you?

Answer 4

If you want to use template directives in a file, why isn't it served via a template?