Django: generate download link

Question

I have a File model, which store path field - path in the filesystem to file. All files are stored in MEDIA_ROOT/files

In template I want generate download link for File object. What is the best way to do this? Should I use static file handling in django?

TIA!

UPD

File model

class File(models.Model):
    item = models.ForeignKey(Item)
    file = models.FileField(upload_to = os.path.join(MEDIA_ROOT,'items'))
    format = models.CharField(max_length = 255)

In item's View I do the following:

files = File.objects.filter(item_id = id)

and the pass files to the template

in template I use files.1.file.url for example and still have bad url like site.com/home/dizpers/...

UPD2

Related question

Solution

My problem was in File model, in file field. In upload_to parameter I use absolute path, but must use relative path:

file = models.FileField(upload_to = 'items')

Answer 1

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "generate download link", but to simply link to the file, just use {{ some_file.url }} as your href.

Answer 2

In models.py:

import os

from django.conf import settings
from django.db import models

class File(models.Model):
    ... (your existing File model)

    @property
    def relative_path(self):
        return os.path.relpath(self.path, settings.MEDIA_ROOT)

(using the relpath method to strip MEDIA_ROOT from the value of self.path)

In your file_detail.html (or equivalent) template:

<a href='{{ MEDIA_URL }}{{ file.relative_path }}'>{{ file.name }}</a>

NB as Chris says, it's better to use a FileField here. The above will hopefully work for your exact situation, but unless you're deeply committed to arranging things that way, I'd suggest changing to the dedicated field.