What do you use to minimize and compress JavaScript libraries? [closed]

Answer 1

UglifyJS is a new one.

UglifyJS compresses better than YUI Compressor and just about on par with the Google Closure Compiler. For example, the compressed version of jQuery from the Google Closure Compiler is only 403 bytes smaller than the version produced by UglifyJS - impressive! UglifyJS is also the fastest to run by a long shot, beating Closure by over 6 seconds!

Additionally, the code produced by UglifyJS is safer than the code that Closure generates. For example, Closure doesn’t know how to deal with eval or with{} - it just logs an error and continues to rename variables anyway. This, obviously, leads to broken code. UglifyJS does not have this problem.

More information can be found here: http://badassjs.com/post/971960912/uglifyjs-a-fast-new-javascript-compressor-for-node-js

Answer 2

Google's closure tools

You can map the minified version to the regular source code for debugging in Firebug with their add-on.

Answer 3

Here is an article which described how to use YUI Compressor for minimizing files during build: Compressing JS files as part of your build process

Answer 4

I use perl's JavaScript::Minifier. It works pretty well and you can e.g. replace some phrases using perl.

Answer 5

I use YUI Compressor. Seems to get the job done well!