grunt-strip-code

The grunt-strip-code plugin is used to remove sections of code from production builds that are only needed in development and test environments. grunt-strip-code uses start and end comments to identify the code sections to strip out. For example:

/* test-code */
removeMeInProduction();
/* end-test-code */

doNotRemoveMe();

A use-case for this practice is to make private JavaScript functions accessible to unit tests without exposing them in production builds. This blog post goes into more detail about the concept and implementation.

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.1

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-strip-code --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-strip-code');

The "strip_code" task

Overview

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named strip_code to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  strip_code: {
    options: {
      // Task-specific options go here.
    },
    your_target: {
      // Target-specific file lists and/or options go here.
    },
  },
})

Options

options.start_comment

Type: String Default value: test-code

The text inside the opening comment used to identify code to strip.

options.end_comment

Type: String Default value: end-test-code

The text inside the closing comment used to identify code to strip.

options.pattern

Type: RegExp Default value: (a generated RegExp matching the start and end comments)

If the default start and end comment matching doesn't work for you needs, you can supply your own RegExp to match against. If the pattern option is specified, the start_comment and end_comment options are ignored.

Usage Examples

The following source code exposes the bar function to the public API for testing, but the bar function should not be accessible in the released library. grunt-strip-code (with the default options) will remove the comment blocks from the example below keeping the bar function private in production:

(function() {

  function bar() {
    doSomething();
  }

  var api = {
    foo: function() {
      bar();
      return "foo";
    }
  }

  /* test-code */
  api._bar = bar;
  /* end-test-code */

  return api;
}());

Specifying different start and end comment values

The following configuration will strip out code that begins with the /* start-test-block */ comment and ends with the /* end-test-block */ comment from all .js files in the dist/ folder.

grunt.initConfig({
  strip_code: {
    options: {
      start_comment: 'start-test-block',
      end_comment: 'end-test-block',
    },
    src: 'dist/*.js'
  },
})

Using your own pattern

The following configuration will remove log() statements from all .js files in the dist/ folder

grunt.initConfig({
  strip_code: {
    options: {
      pattern: /log\(\)/g
    },
    src: 'dist/*.js'
  },
})

Specifying source and destination.

The normal behavior is to strip out code in the source files and then save those files with the same name. If you need to save them to a different name, you can specify a dest option as well.

grunt.initConfig({
  strip_code: {
    options: { },
    files: [
      {src: 'tmp/my-app.js', dest: 'dist/my-app.js'},
      {src: 'tmp/my-lib.js', dest: 'dist/my-lib.js'},
    ],
  },
})

Contributing

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.

Release History

0.1.2

• Minor updates to package.json.

0.1.1

• Fix a bug so it only overwrites a file is there was stripped code.

0.1.0

• Initial Release