HTTP Server: Serving Files

An example of a HTTP server that serves files.

Import utility methods for serving files with mime types.

import { serveDir, serveFile } from "jsr:@std/http/file-server";

Here we start a simple server

Deno.serve((req: Request) => {

Get the path from the url (ie. example.com/whatever -> /whatever)

  const pathname = new URL(req.url).pathname;

  if (pathname === "/simple_file") {

In the most basic case we can just call this function with the request object and path to the file

    return serveFile(req, "./path/to/file.txt");
  }

  if (pathname.startsWith("/static")) {

We can also serve a whole directory using the serveDir utility method. By default it serves the current directory but this can be changed using the "fsRoot" option. We can use the "urlRoot" option to strip off the start of the url in the case we don't serve the directory at the top level.

    return serveDir(req, {
      fsRoot: "public",
      urlRoot: "static",
    });
  }

  return new Response("404: Not Found", {
    status: 404,
  });
});

Run this example locally using the Deno CLI:

deno run --allow-net --allow-read https://docs.deno.com/examples/http-server-files.ts

Additional resources: