In web development lingo, what does it mean to "serve a static file"?

Question

What is a static file? What does it mean "to serve static files"?

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 05 '12 at 22:40

The opposite of a dynamic file :) It means that the file content will be sent to the client (usually a browser) as is without server intervention. By contrast, a dynamic file is parsed by the server which then renders a new set of data based on the dynamic file template. A dynamic file will typically use some form of server-side code to let the server know what type of modifications need to be made.

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 05 '12 at 22:40

4

A static file is something like:

index.html
style.css
script.js
image.jpg

Basically, anything which is not a PHP script, and anything which is not dynamically generated by your web server.

answered Nov 05 '12 at 22:40

Adrian Macneil

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 05 '12 at 22:40

2

It's a file that doesn't change. There isn't any logic running to generate what you see as there would be on a page with "dynamic" content.

answered Nov 05 '12 at 22:40

Jordan Kaye

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 05 '12 at 22:43

It means that server will not be used to produce a file.

When you ask for a *.css or an image - the server does not intervene, whereas if you ask for *.php file a server needs to generate it before giving it back.

http://support.exsitewebware.com/cgi/page.cgi/articles.html/Content_Management/Static_vs_Dynamic_Content

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 13 '18 at 14:11

When people talk about static/dynamic files, they talk about how the file is GENERATED.

A file like index.html can be a "dynamic" file, in a sense that it is dynamically GENERATED (using a server which reached out to a database, some API, some code etc.)

In web development lingo, what does it mean to "serve a static file"?

5 Answers5