Improve "static" template tag to generate staticfiles revision

[Alexey Zankevich]

Currently "static" template tag generates a link without revision, however it would be a good mechanism to force udpate static files on client side.

Current implementation:
{% static "path/to/file.js" %} -> /static/path/to/file.js

Proposal:
{% static "path/to/file.js" %} -> /static/path/to/file.js?<revision>

where <revision> defined as STATIC_REVISION variable in settings. If STATIC_REVISION is not defined, "static" tag will failback to the current behavoir.

I can make a fix if it's considered as a good idea.

[Carl Meyer]

Hi! Thanks for the suggestion.

There are several third-party solutions already that will append a revision to your files (as well as concatenating/minifying them), without even the need to maintain a manual STATIC_REVISION setting. See for instance ​django-pipeline.

I am not sure that the solution you propose (with the addition of a new setting) is clearly enough the best option that it should be integrated with Django. It should be easy to implement as a third-party template tag extending the built-in static tag.

[Preston Timmons]

The built-in ManifestStaticFilesStorage is also available. It adds a revision to the filename based on the file contents and works without an additional setting.