🚀 A Browserify Cache for Maximum speed.

browserify-persist-fs stores the computation results for every file processed in a cache folder which makes recomputation of previous executions extremely fast (particularily useful for CI!).

Oh❗️ It also comes with a logging API that can help you figure out why your browserify execution is slow and which files cost most time!

In our production we were able to reduce repeated requests from 40s → 6s 🎉

Temporary disclaimer

In order to user browserify-persist-fs you need to have a version of browserify that depends on module-deps with a version >= 4.1.0 installed.

By installing a clean version of browserify v14.1.0 or newer, you will get the required module-deps version.

Installation & Setup

Specify browserify-persist-fs as persistentCache option.

const browserify = require('@leichtgewicht/browserify') // for the time being...
const browserifyPersistFs = require('browserify-persist-fs')(
  '.cache', // The folder where things should be stored
  {},       // "hashObject": And object that is used to figure out if the configuration has changed
  null,     // Optional log handler (default: null)
  false     // Pass in true to disable the cache (default: false)
)
const bundle = browserify({
  persistentCache: browserifyPersistFs
})

Identity of builds

When you build something with browserify you can have a lot of ways in to modify the resulting output: transforms, debug, sourcemap, etc. Since it is impossible to figure out automatically what properties may exist, you have to specify how the build is different.

The second property, the hashObject, should be used to make sure that different configurations of browserify don't use the same cache directory.

Usually it contains a mixture of version specifications and config flags:

const browserifyPersistFs = require('browserify-persist-fs')('.cache',
  {
    debug: true,
    transforms: [
      require('browserify/package.json').version,
      require('browserify-shim/package.json').version
      require('uglifyify/package.json').version
    ]
  }
)

Make sure that this results in a good idea to ensure developer happiness ☀️ 🙆

A PR to make this process better would be highly welcome.

Garbage Collection

browserify-persist-fs does not automatically delete old cache files. You will run out of disk space if the old files are not regularly deleted.

browserify-persist-fs offers an API that allows you to delete old files:

const browserifyPersistFs = require('browserify-persist-fs')('.cache', { /*...*/ })
browserifyPersistFs.gc({
  maxAge: 100000, // Age of a file in milliseconds (Default: Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER)
  maxCount: 10000, // Maximum count of files in the cache folder (Default: Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER)
  maxSize: 10000, // Maximum size in bytes that all files accumulatively might have (Default: Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER)
  parallel: 10 // Maximum parallel processes to run (Default: 20)
}, function (err, deletedFiles) {
  // deletedFiles holds the path of all files that got deleted
})

You have to specify at least maxAge, maxCount or maxSize. Any combination is possible as well.

Logging

const browserifyPersistFs = require('browserify-persist-fs')('.cache', {},
  log
)

function log (entry) {
  entry.file // File that has been loaded
  entry.err  // In case an error occurred
  entry.cacheFile // The cache file location that has been used
  entry.durations.total // Total time it took to process this entry
  entry.durations.read // Time it took to read the source file
  entry.durations.cache // Time it took to read the cached content
  entry.durations.generate // Time it took to generate the resulting file
  entry.sizes.input // Size of the input file
  entry.sizes.output // Size of the output file
}

Statistics

Using the above-mentioned Logging capabilities it is possible to generate statistics about the project that you are rendering. These statistics can give clarity about why builds are slow and if everything worked right.

browserify-persist-fs comes with a small statistics module that can generate a useful view:

const stats = require('browserify-persist-fs/stats')()
const browserifyPersistFs = require('browserify-persist-fs')('.cache', {}, stats.update)

// ...
// After processing and gc:

browserifyPersistFs.gc({/*...*/, function (err, deletedFiles) {
  console.log(stats.render(err, deletedFiles))
})

which should show something like:

Avg. duration pre file for reading: 109.9ms
Avg. duration per file for generating: 1ms
Files built: 0
Files with error: 0
Files cached: 1155
Garbage collected files: 0
Slowest files:
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/client/js/app/components/draw/DrawObjectText.js (total: 257ms, reading: 105.96ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/client/js/app/components/draw/DrawObjectCanvas.js (total: 255.98ms, reading: 106.21ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/rgb2hex/index.js (total: 255.9ms, reading: 126.53ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/client/js/app/components/draw/DrawObjectPen.js (total: 255.73ms, reading: 106.07ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/client/js/app/components/draw/StampTool.js (total: 254.7ms, reading: 105.96ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/client/js/app/components/draw/ToolButtons.js (total: 254.68ms, reading: 106.23ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react-bootstrap/lib/utils/index.js (total: 252.14ms, reading: 129.16ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/jsondiffpatch/src/main.js (total: 247.01ms, reading: 130.37ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/ReactPropTypeLocationNames.js (total: 244.29ms, reading: 101.02ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/checkReactTypeSpec.js (total: 244.31ms, reading: 99.56ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/canDefineProperty.js (total: 244.21ms, reading: 101.09ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/traverseAllChildren.js (total: 244.21ms, reading: 100.87ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/ReactPropTypesSecret.js (total: 243.18ms, reading: 99.58ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/reactProdInvariant.js (total: 242.94ms, reading: 101.01ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/PooledClass.js (total: 243.1ms, reading: 100.84ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/ReactComponentTreeHook.js (total: 243.02ms, reading: 99.56ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/ReactNoopUpdateQueue.js (total: 242.93ms, reading: 99.58ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/getIteratorFn.js (total: 241.89ms, reading: 99.83ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/ReactElementSymbol.js (total: 241.83ms, reading: 98.3ms, generating: 1ms)
- /Users/martinheidegger/project/node_modules/react/lib/ReactCurrentOwner.js (total: 241.67ms, reading: 98.31ms, generating: 1ms)

License

MIT

Mentions

I was able to work on this thanks to Nota that produces Scrapbox and Gyazo since we needed this to make our build run on speed!🏃‍