php javascript minifier

Question

I'm using a shared hosting plan on Hostgator. As such I can't run any java from the command line.

Is there any pure PHP minifiers out there that I can use? Minify uses YUICompressor.jar in the background so that won't work.

Anyone know of something that uses just PHP to minify javascript that I can run from the command line? I would also like it to shrink variable names.

Have you considered minifying somewhere else before uploading to your server? — Jamison Dance, Feb 19 '12 at 17:29
Perhaps the easiest way would be to use a web service for this using cURL or similar — Vitamin, Feb 19 '12 at 17:29
@qwertymk: How is the use of git forbidding you to minify your JS before uploading it to the server? — JB Nizet, Feb 19 '12 at 17:55
And why would you commit them? You don't store Java .class files under Git, do you? Yet you compile your Java source files into .class file before deploying a Java app. It's exactly the same with JS files: you minify them before deploying them. See JS files under git as source files, and minified JS files as compiled files. — JB Nizet, Feb 19 '12 at 17:58
@JBNizet: But I want to be able to work on the development version of my file and not just the minified one. — qwertymk, Feb 19 '12 at 18:02
Then implement your build process accordingly. The development minifier could just copy the JS files as is, whereas the production minifier would actually minify them. — JB Nizet, Feb 19 '12 at 18:04

ThiefMaster · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-19T18:31:20.813

You could use the google js minifier. Here's a python script which uses it to compress a bunch of javascript files with it:

import httplib
import simplejson as json
import urllib
import sys

def combine_js(js_files, minify=False):
    files = list(js_files) # create a copy which we can modify
    if not minify:
        code = []
        for path in files:
            f = open(path, 'r')
            code.append(f.read())
            f.close()
        return '\n\n'.join(code)

    def _minify(code):
        params = urllib.urlencode([
            ('js_code', code),
            ('compilation_level', 'SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS'),
            ('output_format', 'json'),
            ('output_info', 'compiled_code'),
            ('output_info', 'errors'),
            ('output_info', 'warnings'),
        ])

        headers = {'Content-type': "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"}
        conn = httplib.HTTPConnection('closure-compiler.appspot.com')
        conn.request('POST', '/compile', params, headers)
        response = conn.getresponse()
        data = json.loads(response.read())
        conn.close()
        if not data.get('compiledCode'):
            print >>sys.stderr, 'WARNING: Did not get any code from google js compiler.'
            print >>sys.stderr, data
            print >>sys.stderr
            print >>sys.stderr, 'Using unminified code'
            return None
        return data.get('compiledCode')

    # Minify code in chunks to avoid the size limit
    chunks = []
    code = ''
    while len(files):
        path = files[0]
        f = open(path, 'r')
        data = f.read()
        f.close()
        # Check if we reach the size limit
        if len(code + data) >= 1000000:
            res = _minify(code)
            if res is None:
                # Fallback to unminified code
                return combine_js(js_files)
            chunks.append(res)
            code = ''
            continue
        code += data
        del files[0]
    if code:
        res = _minify(code)
        if res is None:
            # Fallback to unminified code
            return combine_js(js_files)
        chunks.append(res)
    return '\n\n'.join(chunks).strip()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print combine_js(sys.argv[1:], True)

Usage: python filename.py path/to/your/*.js > minified.js

In case you are using an ancient python version and do not have simplejson installed on your system, here's how you can get the script to work with a local simplejson version (run those commands via SSH):

cd
wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/simplejson/simplejson-2.3.2.tar.gz
tar xzf simplejson-2.3.2.tar.gz
export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/simplejson-2.3.2/

It's from one of my website that runs in production. I just removed some stuff around it and added the standalone `__main__` block. I did not test *that* version but the original script. — ThiefMaster, Feb 19 '12 at 17:56
Ah, just fixed the syntax error. It was just a `,` that didn't belong at its place. The error you get means you are using an old python version. You need at least 2.6 to run it (which is already pretty old, 2.7 is recent!) — ThiefMaster, Feb 19 '12 at 17:58
I'm still getting this error, File "python.py", line 11 with open(path, 'r') as f: ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax. Any workaround? — qwertymk, Feb 19 '12 at 18:01
Does it help if I'll only be running one file through at a time? — qwertymk, Feb 19 '12 at 18:03
No. I just changed it to not use `with`; it might now work with older python versions. — ThiefMaster, Feb 19 '12 at 18:07
Almost the same error, not it's pointing to the `:`, would it help if I pass in the entire js code as a command line arg? — qwertymk, Feb 19 '12 at 18:10
let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/7917/discussion-between-thiefmaster-and-qwertymk) — ThiefMaster, Feb 19 '12 at 18:11
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2604841/importerror-no-module-named-simplejson > for the simplejson issue — Meetai.com, Oct 24 '12 at 01:06

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '13 at 20:37

Minify's default is not YUIC, but a native PHP port of JSMin plus bug fixes.

Other native PHP Javascript compressors I've come across:

JSqueeze (untested, but looks powerful)
JShrink (untested, but a simple token-remover design, like JSMin)
JSMin+ (does not preserve /*! comments, mangles conditional comments)

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 19 '12 at 17:43

If you consider other javascript minifiers/compressors, take a look at a PHP port of dean edward's packer: http://joliclic.free.fr/php/javascript-packer/en/

There is an online demo available so you can test it online (highly recommended before you try to install it on your own server). I quick online test gave me back a correct working minified javascript file. It should get the job done.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 19 '12 at 17:40

0

Find an online web based JS minifier, and query their <form> through PHP with cURL or file_get_contents or similar. I suppose you may have to ask the online service for permission before using their service in this way.

answered Feb 19 '12 at 17:40

Vitamin

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php javascript minifier

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