Auto minify Javascript/CSS files after update?

Question

I know of ways to minify JS and CSS files but is there a way to auto-minify these files in the production system? For instance, I modify something inside the original JS files and update the production environment. However, while using the JS files, it should use an auto-minified version of the JS file (preferably update the current minified version if the source files changed).

Considering that I work in both Unix and Windows environment, writing a bash script did not seem like a plausible idea. So anything that is OS independent or maybe something that uses PHP initially to do this would be great. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You might find value in Google's minify. It uses PHP5, and can sit well on your production server.

From the website:

It combines multiple CSS or Javascript files, removes unnecessary whitespace and comments, and serves them with gzip encoding and optimal client-side cache headers.

Answer 2

See this related questions:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/853295/javascript-build-tools
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/222581/python-script-for-minifying-css

Answer 3

I agree with @RC, read those existing Q/As.

Also other options for your specific question:

• Post-Commit hook - minify step
• Build step during development, commit minified files
• Server side filter that minifies on file change (Rails and other frameworks have this built in)
• Enhance you deployment script to do the minify during deployment

Write these hooks in a cross platform language instead of bash. (JavaScript, Python, Ruby, etc).