I want to serve a react app with flask, but the "static_folder" does not seem to work. This is my very minimal code:
from flask import Flask
from flask_restful import Resource, Api
app = Flask(__name__, static_folder="react_app/build")
api = Api(app)
class HelloWorld(Resource):
def get(self):
return app.send_static_file("index.html")
api.add_resource(HelloWorld, '/')
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run(debug=True)
In the browser I can reach http://localhost:5000 and it returns me the correct index.html. But all the static files like css and js files return a 404 error. For example there is a file: react_app/build/bundle.css or react_app/build/js/some_name.js. But typing http://localhost:5000/bundle.css or http://localhost:5000/js/some_name.js both return a 404 not found error.
From what I understand, if I specify a static_folder I should reach all files from that folder from the root url. What am I missing / missunderstanding?
No, that's not what the documentation says:
- static_url_path – can be used to specify a different path for the static files on the web. Defaults to the name of the static_folder folder.
- static_folder – the folder with static files that should be served at static_url_path. Defaults to the 'static' folder in the root path of the application.
So, your files would be served at localhost:5000/react_app/build. Since that's probably not what you want, you should pass static_url_path as well, with a value of something like "static", so that you can find the files at localhost:5000/static.