Fixed #20819 -- Return 404 instead of 500 error when ``staticfiles`` view is used in production.

2 files changed, 14 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/ref/contrib/staticfiles.txt b/docs/ref/contrib/staticfiles.txt
index 678ab32a05..7b9a2048b5 100644
--- a/docs/ref/contrib/staticfiles.txt
+++ b/docs/ref/contrib/staticfiles.txt
@@ -350,6 +350,12 @@ This view function serves static files in development.
     **insecure**. This is only intended for local development, and should
     **never be used in production**.
 
+.. versionchanged:: 1.7
+
+    Will now raise an :exc:`~django.http.Http404` exception instead of
+    :exc:`~from django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured` when
+    :setting:`DEBUG` is ``True``.
+
 .. note::
 
     To guess the served files' content types, this view relies on the
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.7.txt b/docs/releases/1.7.txt
index 217fdff287..0d6a3fefdc 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.7.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.7.txt
@@ -122,6 +122,14 @@ Miscellaneous
 * Loading empty fixtures emits a ``RuntimeWarning`` rather than raising
   :class:`~django.core.management.CommandError`.
 
+* :view:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.views.serve` will now raise an
+  :exc:`~django.http.Http404` exception instead of
+  :exc:`~from django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured` when :setting:`DEBUG`
+  is ``True``. This change removes the need to conditionally add the view to
+  your root URLconf, which in turn makes it safe to reverse by name. It also
+  removes the ability for visitors to generate spurious HTTP 500 errors by
+  requesting static files that don't exist or haven't been collected yet.
+
 Features deprecated in 1.7
 ==========================