I am building a nifty little "asset-pipeline" for a express.js application, but i have a problem with the pression-step for javascript files

scripts = (fs.readFileSync(file) for file in filelist)
result = scripts.join("\n\n") # concat

upto now, things are working as expected (the logic itself is written in coffeescript). The next step after merging the JS-files would be to minify them. But here is my problem: i want to do this "hot" when i start my express-app in production mode, from within a piece of connect-middleware i wrote.

I need a solution that can minify a given blob of javascript stuff, without writing the result to disk (!), in other words: a function that does the minification and returns the result directly as a result value. (No, no webservices either.) It should be usable like this:

minified_result = awesomeMinifyFunction( result )

The raw processing performance isn't that important for me, neither is the level of pression, i need just something that works this way without hassle.

Does anyone know a suitable solution? Thanks in advance!

I am building a nifty little "asset-pipeline" for a express.js application, but i have a problem with the pression-step for javascript files

scripts = (fs.readFileSync(file) for file in filelist)
result = scripts.join("\n\n") # concat

upto now, things are working as expected (the logic itself is written in coffeescript). The next step after merging the JS-files would be to minify them. But here is my problem: i want to do this "hot" when i start my express-app in production mode, from within a piece of connect-middleware i wrote.

I need a solution that can minify a given blob of javascript stuff, without writing the result to disk (!), in other words: a function that does the minification and returns the result directly as a result value. (No, no webservices either.) It should be usable like this:

minified_result = awesomeMinifyFunction( result )

The raw processing performance isn't that important for me, neither is the level of pression, i need just something that works this way without hassle.

Does anyone know a suitable solution? Thanks in advance!

• javascript
• node.js
• express
• coffeescript
• minify

3 Answers 3

I'd suggest you look at one of the JavaScript based minifiers, like UglifyJS2.

npm install uglify-js

It can be used within a Node.JS application programatically:

var UglifyJS = require("uglify-js");
// you could pass multiple files (rather than reading them as strings)
var result = UglifyJS.minify([ "file1.js", "file2.js", "file3.js" ]);
console.log(result.code);

Or you could

var result = scripts.join("\n\n");  # concat
result = UglifyJS.minify(result, {fromString: true});
console.log(result.code);

You can write your own function that removes all ments/spaces/blank lines etc.

You can use a regular expression that makes use of rJSmin like:

function awesomeMinifyFunction(result)
{
   pattern = (
    r'([^\047"/\000-\040]+)|((?:(?:\047[^\047\\\r\n]*(?:\\(?:[^\r\n]|\r?'
    r'\n|\r)[^\047\\\r\n]*)*\047)|(?:"[^"\\\r\n]*(?:\\(?:[^\r\n]|\r?\n|'
    r'\r)[^"\\\r\n]*)*"))[^\047"/\000-\040]*)|(?<=[(,=:\[!&|?{};\r\n])(?'
    r':[\000-\011\013\014\016-\040]|(?:/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/))*'
    r'(?:(?:(?://[^\r\n]*)?[\r\n])(?:[\000-\011\013\014\016-\040]|(?:/\*'
    r'[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/))*)*((?:/(?![\r\n/*])[^/\\\[\r\n]*(?:('
    r'?:\\[^\r\n]|(?:\[[^\\\]\r\n]*(?:\\[^\r\n][^\\\]\r\n]*)*\]))[^/\\\['
    r'\r\n]*)*/)[^\047"/\000-\040]*)|(?<=[\000-#%-,./:-@\[-^`{-~-]return'
    r')(?:[\000-\011\013\014\016-\040]|(?:/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/'
    r'))*(?:(?:(?://[^\r\n]*)?[\r\n])(?:[\000-\011\013\014\016-\040]|(?:'
    r'/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/)))*((?:/(?![\r\n/*])[^/\\\[\r\n]*(?'
    r':(?:\\[^\r\n]|(?:\[[^\\\]\r\n]*(?:\\[^\r\n][^\\\]\r\n]*)*\]))[^/'
    r'\\\[\r\n]*)*/)[^\047"/\000-\040]*)|(?<=[^\000-!#%&(*,./:-@\[\\^`{|'
    r'~])(?:[\000-\011\013\014\016-\040]|(?:/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)'
    r'*/))*(?:((?:(?://[^\r\n]*)?[\r\n]))(?:[\000-\011\013\014\016-\040]'
    r'|(?:/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/))*)+(?=[^\000-\040"#%-\047)*,./'
    r':-@\\-^`|-~])|(?<=[^\000-#%-,./:-@\[-^`{-~-])((?:[\000-\011\013\01'
    r'4\016-\040]|(?:/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/)))+(?=[^\000-#%-,./:'
    r'-@\[-^`{-~-])|(?<=\+)((?:[\000-\011\013\014\016-\040]|(?:/\*[^*]*'
    r'\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/)))+(?=\+)|(?<=-)((?:[\000-\011\013\014\016-'
    r'\040]|(?:/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/)))+(?=-)|(?:[\000-\011\013'
    r'\014\016-\040]|(?:/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^/*][^*]*\*+)*/))+|(?:(?:(?://[^'
    r'\r\n]*)?[\r\n])(?:[\000-\011\013\014\016-\040]|(?:/\*[^*]*\*+(?:[^'
    r'/*][^*]*\*+)*/))*)+'
)
 return result.match(pattern);
}

I'd remend taking a look at Asset Rack, which already implements what you're building.