Default content-type for StaticFiles

[pwoolcoc]

Rocket version:

version = "0.5.0-dev"
source = "git+https://github.com/SergioBenitez/rocket#ddfd73d6f33e8a8ef3f37be94bbbdcb840804326"

os version: OSX Catalina (10.15.6)

When using StaticFiles to serve content, it relies on ContentType::from_extension to generate the content-type header for a response. If a file does not have an extension, no content-type will be set. I'd like to know if there is a way to set a default content-type, or if that would be a useful feature to add. I'm willing to open a PR for the feature if there is a likely chance it will be accepted.

To reproduce: serve a file without an extension using rocket_contrib::serve::StaticFiles

Assuming there is no existing way to do this, I'd be curious about maintainers' ideas of how to solve this. I'd be happy defaulting to text/plain, and including it as an option in the existing Options bitmask. However, others might want the ability to set it to a specific content-type, like text/html or something else, and in that case I don't have a great idea for a design.

[igalic]

maybe one could provide a default content type via Rocket.toml? although i don't know how much of that would change with #852

[SergioBenitez]

When using StaticFiles to serve content, it relies on ContentType::from_extension to generate the content-type header for a response. If a file does not have an extension, no content-type will be set. I'd like to know if there is a way to set a default content-type, or if that would be a useful feature to add. I'm willing to open a PR for the feature if there is a likely chance it will be accepted.

There is no way to set a default Content-Type at the moment. My take is that a good default would be ContentType::Binary, or perhaps None as it is today. Here's an idea for an API:

impl StaticFiles {
    pub fn default_content_type<C>(mut self, content_type: C) -> Self 
        where C: Into<Option<ContentType>>
    {
        self.default_content_type = content_type.into();
        self
    }
}

.default_content_type(None) would revert the functionality to the present one. .default_content_type(ContentType::Plain), for example, would set ContentType::Plain as the default Content-Type.

I would accept a PR implementing this API. It's unfortunate that default_content_type is rather lengthy; I'd be appreciative of a name that is as descriptive yet pithier.

[SergioBenitez]

@igalic With #852 implemented, you could parse your own Content-Type from a config easily:

# Rocket.toml
default_content_type = "application/json"

#[derive(Deserialize)]
struct MyAppConfig {
    default_content_type: ContentType
}

let config: MyAppConfig = Config::default().extract()?;
rocket::ignite().mount("/", StaticFiles::from(...).default(config.default_content_type));

[SergioBenitez]

Accepted, and moving to tracking in #95.