cachify-minify

v1.1.5

Published

2 years ago

Module for minification and cachifying JS files on server side. It rebuilds pack file everytime one of included files changes, with no need of application restarting.

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lawrenz

Cachify-minify

cachify-minify makes having proper browser cache and HTTP caching. It creates a minified pack and checks for its integrity every time user requests for it. It rebuild pack each time one of included files changes.

It is a set of middleware and view helper functions for the Node.js express framework.

Credits

Hey, there! This module is made from combining connect-cachify and node-minify Its purpose is to create a minified package from input files and rebuild package everytime one of included files changes without app restart. It no longer supports caching of css files because node-minify minifies only JS files. I hope you'll like it :)

Installation

npm install cachify-minify

How to Use

var express = require('express');
var cachify = require('cachify-minify');
var app = express();

Middleware

var assets = {
    "/js/main.min.js": [
      '/js/lib/jquery.js',
      '/js/magick.js',
      '/js/laughter.js'
    ]
};

app.use(cachify.setup(assets, {
  root: __dirname
}));

setup takes two parameters: assets and options. Assets is an associative array where the keys are your production urls, and the value is a list of development urls that produce the same asset.

We'll discussion options in a section below.

Cachify middleware is now enabled. Let's look at this after hooking up the view helpers.

Note: You must put cachify.setup before static or other connect middleware which works with these same requests.

In an EJS template

...
<head>
  <title>Dashboard: Hamsters of North America</title>
</head>
<body>
...
  <%- cachify_js('/js/main.min.js') %>
</body>
...

In a Jade template

...
title= Dashboard: Hamsters of North America
meta(charset='utf-8')
...
body
...
  | !{cachify_js('/js/main.min.js')}
  block scripts

The middleware makes caching transparent. A request for /fa6d51a13a245a90aeb48eeca0e52396/js/main.min.js will have the req.url rewritten to /js/main.min.js, so that other middleware will work properly.

The middleware sets the cache expiration headers to the Mayan Apocalypse, and does it's best to ensure browsers won't request that version of /js/main.min.js again.

A goal is for this module to work well with other connect compilers, such as LESS or connect-assets.

Options

The following are optional config for cachify.setup

root - Path where static assets are stored on disk. Same value as you'd pass to the static middleware.

Magick

So how does cachify work?

When you cachify a url, it adds an MD5 hash of the file's contents into the URL it generates:

http://example.com/cbcb1e865e61c08a68a4e0bfa293e806/main.js

Incoming requests are checked for this MD5 hash. If present and if we' know about the resource (either via options or the file exists on disk), then the request path is rewritten back to /main.js, so that another route can process the request.

These requests are served up with expires headers that are very long lived, so a user's browser will only request them once.

Cachify doesn't attempt to find an older version of your resource, if the MD5 has was for an older file.

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