uglify-js
Advanced tools
The uglify-js npm package is a JavaScript parser, minifier, compressor, and beautifier toolkit. It is commonly used to reduce the size of JavaScript files by removing unnecessary characters (like whitespace, comments, etc.) without changing their functionality. This helps in decreasing the load time and bandwidth usage of web applications.
Minification
Minification is the process of removing unnecessary characters and whitespace from source code without changing its functionality. The code sample demonstrates how to read a JavaScript file, minify it using uglify-js, and then write the minified code to a new file.
const uglifyJS = require('uglify-js');
const fs = require('fs');
const code = fs.readFileSync('example.js', 'utf8');
const minifiedCode = uglifyJS.minify(code).code;
fs.writeFileSync('example.min.js', minifiedCode);Compression
Compression is a form of optimization that reduces code size by performing various transformations, such as removing dead code or simplifying expressions. The code sample shows how to use uglify-js to compress a JavaScript file by removing console statements and then writing the compressed code to a new file.
const uglifyJS = require('uglify-js');
const fs = require('fs');
const options = {
compress: {
drop_console: true
}
};
const code = fs.readFileSync('example.js', 'utf8');
const compressedCode = uglifyJS.minify(code, options).code;
fs.writeFileSync('example.compressed.js', compressedCode);Mangling
Mangling is the process of shortening variable and function names to reduce file size and potentially obfuscate code. The code sample illustrates how to use uglify-js to mangle a JavaScript file and then save the mangled code to a new file.
const uglifyJS = require('uglify-js');
const fs = require('fs');
const options = {
mangle: true
};
const code = fs.readFileSync('example.js', 'utf8');
const mangledCode = uglifyJS.minify(code, options).code;
fs.writeFileSync('example.mangled.js', mangledCode);Beautification
Beautification is the process of reformatting minified or obfuscated code into a more readable and maintainable format. The code sample demonstrates how to use uglify-js to beautify a JavaScript file and then write the beautified code to a new file.
const uglifyJS = require('uglify-js');
const fs = require('fs');
const options = {
output: {
beautify: true
}
};
const code = fs.readFileSync('example.js', 'utf8');
const beautifiedCode = uglifyJS.minify(code, options).code;
fs.writeFileSync('example.beautified.js', beautifiedCode);Terser is a modern fork of uglify-js that supports the ES6+ syntax. It offers similar functionalities such as minification, compression, and mangling. Terser is often preferred for projects using modern JavaScript syntax.
Google Closure Compiler is a JavaScript optimizing compiler that provides advanced optimizations including dead code removal, function inlining, and variable renaming. It is known for its aggressive optimization techniques and can produce smaller output files compared to uglify-js, but it may require more configuration.
Babel-minify is a minifier based on the Babel toolchain. It leverages Babel's understanding of the latest JavaScript syntax to provide minification and compression. It is suitable for projects that are already using Babel and need to support newer JavaScript features.
Esbuild is an extremely fast JavaScript bundler and minifier. It is written in Go and focuses on speed, boasting compile times significantly faster than other bundlers and minifiers. Esbuild also supports modern JavaScript and TypeScript out of the box.
UglifyJS is a JavaScript parser, minifier, compressor and beautifier toolkit.
uglify-js@3 has a simplified API and CLI that is not backwards compatible with uglify-js@2.2.x releases can be found here.uglify-js only supports JavaScript (ECMAScript 5).First make sure you have installed the latest version of node.js (You may need to restart your computer after this step).
From NPM for use as a command line app:
npm install uglify-js -g
From NPM for programmatic use:
npm install uglify-js
uglifyjs [input files] [options]
UglifyJS can take multiple input files. It's recommended that you pass the input files first, then pass the options. UglifyJS will parse input files in sequence and apply any compression options. The files are parsed in the same global scope, that is, a reference from a file to some variable/function declared in another file will be matched properly.
If no input file is specified, UglifyJS will read from STDIN.
If you wish to pass your options before the input files, separate the two with a double dash to prevent input files being used as option arguments:
uglifyjs --compress --mangle -- input.js
-h, --help Print usage information.
`--help options` for details on available options.
-V, --version Print version number.
-p, --parse <options> Specify parser options:
`acorn` Use Acorn for parsing.
`bare_returns` Allow return outside of functions.
Useful when minifying CommonJS
modules and Userscripts that may
be anonymous function wrapped (IIFE)
by the .user.js engine `caller`.
`expression` Parse a single expression, rather than
a program (for parsing JSON).
`spidermonkey` Assume input files are SpiderMonkey
AST format (as JSON).
-c, --compress [options] Enable compressor/specify compressor options:
`pure_funcs` List of functions that can be safely
removed when their return values are
not used.
-m, --mangle [options] Mangle names/specify mangler options:
`reserved` List of names that should not be mangled.
--mangle-props [options] Mangle properties/specify mangler options:
`builtins` Mangle property names that overlaps
with standard JavaScript globals.
`debug` Add debug prefix and suffix.
`domprops` Mangle property names that overlaps
with DOM properties.
`keep_quoted` Only mangle unquoted properties.
`regex` Only mangle matched property names.
`reserved` List of names that should not be mangled.
-b, --beautify [options] Beautify output/specify output options:
`beautify` Enabled with `--beautify` by default.
`preamble` Preamble to prepend to the output. You
can use this to insert a comment, for
example for licensing information.
This will not be parsed, but the source
map will adjust for its presence.
`quote_style` Quote style:
0 - auto
1 - single
2 - double
3 - original
`wrap_iife` Wrap IIFEs in parenthesis. Note: you may
want to disable `negate_iife` under
compressor options.
-O, --output-opts [options] Specify output options (`beautify` disabled by default).
-o, --output <file> Output file path (default STDOUT). Specify `ast` or
`spidermonkey` to write UglifyJS or SpiderMonkey AST
as JSON to STDOUT respectively.
--comments [filter] Preserve copyright comments in the output. By
default this works like Google Closure, keeping
JSDoc-style comments that contain "@license" or
"@preserve". You can optionally pass one of the
following arguments to this flag:
- "all" to keep all comments
- a valid JS RegExp like `/foo/` or `/^!/` to
keep only matching comments.
Note that currently not *all* comments can be
kept when compression is on, because of dead
code removal or cascading statements into
sequences.
--config-file <file> Read `minify()` options from JSON file.
-d, --define <expr>[=value] Global definitions.
-e, --enclose [arg[:value]] Embed everything in a big function, with configurable
argument(s) & value(s).
--ie8 Support non-standard Internet Explorer 8.
Equivalent to setting `ie8: true` in `minify()`
for `compress`, `mangle` and `output` options.
By default UglifyJS will not try to be IE-proof.
--keep-fnames Do not mangle/drop function names. Useful for
code relying on Function.prototype.name.
--name-cache <file> File to hold mangled name mappings.
--self Build UglifyJS as a library (implies --wrap UglifyJS)
--source-map [options] Enable source map/specify source map options:
`base` Path to compute relative paths from input files.
`content` Input source map, useful if you're compressing
JS that was generated from some other original
code. Specify "inline" if the source map is
included within the sources.
`filename` Filename and/or location of the output source
(sets `file` attribute in source map).
`includeSources` Pass this flag if you want to include
the content of source files in the
source map as sourcesContent property.
`root` Path to the original source to be included in
the source map.
`url` If specified, path to the source map to append in
`//# sourceMappingURL`.
--timings Display operations run time on STDERR.
--toplevel Compress and/or mangle variables in top level scope.
--verbose Print diagnostic messages.
--warn Print warning messages.
--wrap <name> Embed everything in a big function, making the
“exports” and “global” variables available. You
need to pass an argument to this option to
specify the name that your module will take
when included in, say, a browser.
Specify --output (-o) to declare the output file. Otherwise the output
goes to STDOUT.
UglifyJS can generate a source map file, which is highly useful for
debugging your compressed JavaScript. To get a source map, pass
--source-map --output output.js (source map will be written out to
output.js.map).
Additional options:
--source-map "filename='<NAME>'" to specify the name of the source map. The value of
filename is only used to set file attribute (see the spec)
in source map file.
--source-map "root='<URL>'" to pass the URL where the original files can be found.
--source-map "url='<URL>'" to specify the URL where the source map can be found.
Otherwise UglifyJS assumes HTTP X-SourceMap is being used and will omit the
//# sourceMappingURL= directive.
For example:
uglifyjs js/file1.js js/file2.js \
-o foo.min.js -c -m \
--source-map "root='http://foo.com/src',url='foo.min.js.map'"
The above will compress and mangle file1.js and file2.js, will drop the
output in foo.min.js and the source map in foo.min.js.map. The source
mapping will refer to http://foo.com/src/js/file1.js and
http://foo.com/src/js/file2.js (in fact it will list http://foo.com/src
as the source map root, and the original files as js/file1.js and
js/file2.js).
When you're compressing JS code that was output by a compiler such as CoffeeScript, mapping to the JS code won't be too helpful. Instead, you'd like to map back to the original code (i.e. CoffeeScript). UglifyJS has an option to take an input source map. Assuming you have a mapping from CoffeeScript → compiled JS, UglifyJS can generate a map from CoffeeScript → compressed JS by mapping every token in the compiled JS to its original location.
To use this feature pass --source-map "content='/path/to/input/source.map'"
or --source-map "content=inline" if the source map is included inline with
the sources.
You need to pass --compress (-c) to enable the compressor. Optionally
you can pass a comma-separated list of compress options.
Options are in the form foo=bar, or just foo (the latter implies
a boolean option that you want to set true; it's effectively a
shortcut for foo=true).
Example:
uglifyjs file.js -c toplevel,sequences=false
To enable the mangler you need to pass --mangle (-m). The following
(comma-separated) options are supported:
toplevel (default false) -- mangle names declared in the top level scope.
eval (default false) -- mangle names visible in scopes where eval or with are used.
When mangling is enabled but you want to prevent certain names from being
mangled, you can declare those names with --mangle reserved — pass a
comma-separated list of names. For example:
uglifyjs ... -m reserved=['$','require','exports']
to prevent the require, exports and $ names from being changed.
--mangle-props)Note: THIS WILL PROBABLY BREAK YOUR CODE. Mangling property names
is a separate step, different from variable name mangling. Pass
--mangle-props to enable it. It will mangle all properties in the
input code with the exception of built in DOM properties and properties
in core JavaScript classes. For example:
// example.js
var x = {
baz_: 0,
foo_: 1,
calc: function() {
return this.foo_ + this.baz_;
}
};
x.bar_ = 2;
x["baz_"] = 3;
console.log(x.calc());
Mangle all properties (except for JavaScript builtins):
$ uglifyjs example.js -c -m --mangle-props
var x={o:0,_:1,l:function(){return this._+this.o}};x.t=2,x.o=3,console.log(x.l());
Mangle all properties except for reserved properties:
$ uglifyjs example.js -c -m --mangle-props reserved=[foo_,bar_]
var x={o:0,foo_:1,_:function(){return this.foo_+this.o}};x.bar_=2,x.o=3,console.log(x._());
Mangle all properties matching a regex:
$ uglifyjs example.js -c -m --mangle-props regex=/_$/
var x={o:0,_:1,calc:function(){return this._+this.o}};x.l=2,x.o=3,console.log(x.calc());
Combining mangle properties options:
$ uglifyjs example.js -c -m --mangle-props regex=/_$/,reserved=[bar_]
var x={o:0,_:1,calc:function(){return this._+this.o}};x.bar_=2,x.o=3,console.log(x.calc());
In order for this to be of any use, we avoid mangling standard JS names by
default (--mangle-props builtins to override).
A default exclusion file is provided in tools/domprops.json which should
cover most standard JS and DOM properties defined in various browsers. Pass
--mangle-props domprops to disable this feature.
A regular expression can be used to define which property names should be
mangled. For example, --mangle-props regex=/^_/ will only mangle property
names that start with an underscore.
When you compress multiple files using this option, in order for them to
work together in the end we need to ensure somehow that one property gets
mangled to the same name in all of them. For this, pass --name-cache filename.json
and UglifyJS will maintain these mappings in a file which can then be reused.
It should be initially empty. Example:
$ rm -f /tmp/cache.json # start fresh
$ uglifyjs file1.js file2.js --mangle-props --name-cache /tmp/cache.json -o part1.js
$ uglifyjs file3.js file4.js --mangle-props --name-cache /tmp/cache.json -o part2.js
Now, part1.js and part2.js will be consistent with each other in terms
of mangled property names.
Using the name cache is not necessary if you compress all your files in a single call to UglifyJS.
--mangle-props keep_quoted)Using quoted property name (o["foo"]) reserves the property name (foo)
so that it is not mangled throughout the entire script even when used in an
unquoted style (o.foo). Example:
// stuff.js
var o = {
"foo": 1,
bar: 3
};
o.foo += o.bar;
console.log(o.foo);
$ uglifyjs stuff.js --mangle-props keep_quoted -c -m
var o={foo:1,o:3};o.foo+=o.o,console.log(o.foo);
You can also pass --mangle-props debug in order to mangle property names
without completely obscuring them. For example the property o.foo
would mangle to o._$foo$_ with this option. This allows property mangling
of a large codebase while still being able to debug the code and identify
where mangling is breaking things.
$ uglifyjs stuff.js --mangle-props debug -c -m
var o={_$foo$_:1,_$bar$_:3};o._$foo$_+=o._$bar$_,console.log(o._$foo$_);
You can also pass a custom suffix using --mangle-props debug=XYZ. This would then
mangle o.foo to o._$foo$XYZ_. You can change this each time you compile a
script to identify how a property got mangled. One technique is to pass a
random number on every compile to simulate mangling changing with different
inputs (e.g. as you update the input script with new properties), and to help
identify mistakes like writing mangled keys to storage.
Assuming installation via NPM, you can load UglifyJS in your application like this:
var UglifyJS = require("uglify-js");
There is a single high level function, minify(code, options),
which will perform all minification phases in a configurable
manner. By default minify() will enable the options compress
and mangle. Example:
var code = "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }";
var result = UglifyJS.minify(code);
console.log(result.error); // runtime error, or `undefined` if no error
console.log(result.code); // minified output: function add(n,d){return n+d}
You can minify more than one JavaScript file at a time by using an object
for the first argument where the keys are file names and the values are source
code:
var code = {
"file1.js": "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }",
"file2.js": "console.log(add(1 + 2, 3 + 4));"
};
var result = UglifyJS.minify(code);
console.log(result.code);
// function add(d,n){return d+n}console.log(add(3,7));
The toplevel option:
var code = {
"file1.js": "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }",
"file2.js": "console.log(add(1 + 2, 3 + 4));"
};
var options = { toplevel: true };
var result = UglifyJS.minify(code, options);
console.log(result.code);
// console.log(3+7);
The nameCache option:
var options = {
mangle: {
toplevel: true,
},
nameCache: {}
};
var result1 = UglifyJS.minify({
"file1.js": "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }"
}, options);
var result2 = UglifyJS.minify({
"file2.js": "console.log(add(1 + 2, 3 + 4));"
}, options);
console.log(result1.code);
// function n(n,r){return n+r}
console.log(result2.code);
// console.log(n(3,7));
You may persist the name cache to the file system in the following way:
var cacheFileName = "/tmp/cache.json";
var options = {
mangle: {
properties: true,
},
nameCache: JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(cacheFileName, "utf8"))
};
fs.writeFileSync("part1.js", UglifyJS.minify({
"file1.js": fs.readFileSync("file1.js", "utf8"),
"file2.js": fs.readFileSync("file2.js", "utf8")
}, options).code, "utf8");
fs.writeFileSync("part2.js", UglifyJS.minify({
"file3.js": fs.readFileSync("file3.js", "utf8"),
"file4.js": fs.readFileSync("file4.js", "utf8")
}, options).code, "utf8");
fs.writeFileSync(cacheFileName, JSON.stringify(options.nameCache), "utf8");
An example of a combination of minify() options:
var code = {
"file1.js": "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }",
"file2.js": "console.log(add(1 + 2, 3 + 4));"
};
var options = {
toplevel: true,
compress: {
global_defs: {
"@console.log": "alert"
},
passes: 2
},
output: {
beautify: false,
preamble: "/* uglified */"
}
};
var result = UglifyJS.minify(code, options);
console.log(result.code);
// /* uglified */
// alert(10);"
To produce warnings:
var code = "function f(){ var u; return 2 + 3; }";
var options = { warnings: true };
var result = UglifyJS.minify(code, options);
console.log(result.error); // runtime error, `undefined` in this case
console.log(result.warnings); // [ 'Dropping unused variable u [0:1,18]' ]
console.log(result.code); // function f(){return 5}
An error example:
var result = UglifyJS.minify({"foo.js" : "if (0) else console.log(1);"});
console.log(JSON.stringify(result.error));
// {"message":"Unexpected token: keyword (else)","filename":"foo.js","line":1,"col":7,"pos":7}
Note: unlike uglify-js@2.x, the 3.x API does not throw errors. To
achieve a similar effect one could do the following:
var result = UglifyJS.minify(code, options);
if (result.error) throw result.error;
compress (default {}) — pass false to skip compressing entirely.
Pass an object to specify custom compress options.
ie8 (default false) -- set to true to support IE8.
keep_fnames (default: false) -- pass true to prevent discarding or mangling
of function names. Useful for code relying on Function.prototype.name.
mangle (default true) — pass false to skip mangling names, or pass
an object to specify mangle options (see below).
mangle.properties (default false) — a subcategory of the mangle option.
Pass an object to specify custom mangle property options.nameCache (default null) -- pass an empty object {} or a previously
used nameCache object if you wish to cache mangled variable and
property names across multiple invocations of minify(). Note: this is
a read/write property. minify() will read the name cache state of this
object and update it during minification so that it may be
reused or externally persisted by the user.
output (default null) — pass an object if you wish to specify
additional output options. The defaults are optimized
for best compression.
parse (default {}) — pass an object if you wish to specify some
additional parse options.
sourceMap (default false) -- pass an object if you wish to specify
source map options.
toplevel (default false) -- set to true if you wish to enable top level
variable and function name mangling and to drop unused variables and functions.
warnings (default false) — pass true to return compressor warnings
in result.warnings. Use the value "verbose" for more detailed warnings.
{
parse: {
// parse options
},
compress: {
// compress options
},
mangle: {
// mangle options
properties: {
// mangle property options
}
},
output: {
// output options
},
sourceMap: {
// source map options
},
nameCache: null, // or specify a name cache object
toplevel: false,
ie8: false,
warnings: false,
}
To generate a source map:
var result = UglifyJS.minify({"file1.js": "var a = function() {};"}, {
sourceMap: {
filename: "out.js",
url: "out.js.map"
}
});
console.log(result.code); // minified output
console.log(result.map); // source map
Note that the source map is not saved in a file, it's just returned in
result.map. The value passed for sourceMap.url is only used to set
//# sourceMappingURL=out.js.map in result.code. The value of
filename is only used to set file attribute (see the spec)
in source map file.
You can set option sourceMap.url to be "inline" and source map will
be appended to code.
You can also specify sourceRoot property to be included in source map:
var result = UglifyJS.minify({"file1.js": "var a = function() {};"}, {
sourceMap: {
root: "http://example.com/src",
url: "out.js.map"
}
});
If you're compressing compiled JavaScript and have a source map for it, you
can use sourceMap.content:
var result = UglifyJS.minify({"compiled.js": "compiled code"}, {
sourceMap: {
content: "content from compiled.js.map",
url: "minified.js.map"
}
});
// same as before, it returns `code` and `map`
If you're using the X-SourceMap header instead, you can just omit sourceMap.url.
bare_returns (default false) -- support top level return statements
html5_comments (default true)
shebang (default true) -- support #!command as the first line
arguments (default: true) -- replace arguments[index] with function
parameter name whenever possible.
assignments (default: true) -- apply optimizations to assignment expressions.
booleans (default: true) -- various optimizations for boolean context,
for example !!a ? b : c → a ? b : c
collapse_vars (default: true) -- Collapse single-use non-constant variables,
side effects permitting.
comparisons (default: true) -- apply certain optimizations to binary nodes,
e.g. !(a <= b) → a > b, attempts to negate binary nodes, e.g.
a = !b && !c && !d && !e → a=!(b||c||d||e) etc.
conditionals (default: true) -- apply optimizations for if-s and conditional
expressions
dead_code (default: true) -- remove unreachable code
directives (default: true) -- remove redundant or non-standard directives
drop_console (default: false) -- Pass true to discard calls to
console.* functions. If you wish to drop a specific function call
such as console.info and/or retain side effects from function arguments
after dropping the function call then use pure_funcs instead.
drop_debugger (default: true) -- remove debugger; statements
evaluate (default: true) -- Evaluate expression for shorter constant
representation. Pass "eager" to always replace function calls whenever
possible, or a positive integer to specify an upper bound for each individual
evaluation in number of characters.
expression (default: false) -- Pass true to preserve completion values
from terminal statements without return, e.g. in bookmarklets.
functions (default: true) -- convert declarations from varto function
whenever possible.
global_defs (default: {}) -- see conditional compilation
hoist_funs (default: false) -- hoist function declarations
hoist_props (default: true) -- hoist properties from constant object and
array literals into regular variables subject to a set of constraints. For example:
var o={p:1, q:2}; f(o.p, o.q); is converted to f(1, 2);. Note: hoist_props
works best with mangle enabled, the compress option passes set to 2 or higher,
and the compress option toplevel enabled.
hoist_vars (default: false) -- hoist var declarations (this is false
by default because it seems to increase the size of the output in general)
if_return (default: true) -- optimizations for if/return and if/continue
inline (default: true) -- inline calls to function with simple/return statement:
false -- same as 00 -- disabled inlining1 -- inline simple functions2 -- inline functions with arguments3 -- inline functions with arguments and variablestrue -- same as 3join_vars (default: true) -- join consecutive var statements
keep_fargs (default: strict) -- Discard unused function arguments. Code
which relies on Function.length will break if this is done indiscriminately,
i.e. when passing true. Pass false to always retain function arguments.
keep_fnames (default: false) -- Pass true to prevent the
compressor from discarding function names. Useful for code relying on
Function.prototype.name. See also: the keep_fnames mangle option.
keep_infinity (default: false) -- Pass true to prevent Infinity from
being compressed into 1/0, which may cause performance issues on Chrome.
loops (default: true) -- optimizations for do, while and for loops
when we can statically determine the condition.
negate_iife (default: true) -- negate "Immediately-Called Function Expressions"
where the return value is discarded, to avoid the parens that the
code generator would insert.
objects (default: true) -- compact duplicate keys in object literals.
passes (default: 1) -- The maximum number of times to run compress.
In some cases more than one pass leads to further compressed code. Keep in
mind more passes will take more time.
properties (default: true) -- rewrite property access using the dot notation, for
example foo["bar"] → foo.bar
pure_funcs (default: null) -- You can pass an array of names and
UglifyJS will assume that those functions do not produce side
effects. DANGER: will not check if the name is redefined in scope.
An example case here, for instance var q = Math.floor(a/b). If
variable q is not used elsewhere, UglifyJS will drop it, but will
still keep the Math.floor(a/b), not knowing what it does. You can
pass pure_funcs: [ 'Math.floor' ] to let it know that this
function won't produce any side effect, in which case the whole
statement would get discarded. The current implementation adds some
overhead (compression will be slower). Make sure symbols under pure_funcs
are also under mangle.reserved to avoid mangling.
pure_getters (default: "strict") -- If you pass true for
this, UglifyJS will assume that object property access
(e.g. foo.bar or foo["bar"]) doesn't have any side effects.
Specify "strict" to treat foo.bar as side-effect-free only when
foo is certain to not throw, i.e. not null or undefined.
reduce_funcs (default: true) -- Allows single-use functions to be
inlined as function expressions when permissible allowing further
optimization. Enabled by default. Option depends on reduce_vars
being enabled. Some code runs faster in the Chrome V8 engine if this
option is disabled. Does not negatively impact other major browsers.
reduce_vars (default: true) -- Improve optimization on variables assigned with and
used as constant values.
sequences (default: true) -- join consecutive simple statements using the
comma operator. May be set to a positive integer to specify the maximum number
of consecutive comma sequences that will be generated. If this option is set to
true then the default sequences limit is 200. Set option to false or 0
to disable. The smallest sequences length is 2. A sequences value of 1
is grandfathered to be equivalent to true and as such means 200. On rare
occasions the default sequences limit leads to very slow compress times in which
case a value of 20 or less is recommended.
side_effects (default: true) -- Pass false to disable potentially dropping
functions marked as "pure". A function call is marked as "pure" if a comment
annotation /*@__PURE__*/ or /*#__PURE__*/ immediately precedes the call. For
example: /*@__PURE__*/foo();
strings (default: true) -- compact string concatenations.
switches (default: true) -- de-duplicate and remove unreachable switch branches
toplevel (default: false) -- drop unreferenced functions ("funcs") and/or
variables ("vars") in the top level scope (false by default, true to drop
both unreferenced functions and variables)
top_retain (default: null) -- prevent specific toplevel functions and
variables from unused removal (can be array, comma-separated, RegExp or
function. Implies toplevel)
typeofs (default: true) -- Transforms typeof foo == "undefined" into
foo === void 0. Note: recommend to set this value to false for IE10 and
earlier versions due to known issues.
unsafe (default: false) -- apply "unsafe" transformations (discussion below)
unsafe_comps (default: false) -- compress expressions like a <= b assuming
none of the operands can be (coerced to) NaN.
unsafe_Function (default: false) -- compress and mangle Function(args, code)
when both args and code are string literals.
unsafe_math (default: false) -- optimize numerical expressions like
2 * x * 3 into 6 * x, which may give imprecise floating point results.
unsafe_proto (default: false) -- optimize expressions like
Array.prototype.slice.call(a) into [].slice.call(a)
unsafe_regexp (default: false) -- enable substitutions of variables with
RegExp values the same way as if they are constants.
unsafe_undefined (default: false) -- substitute void 0 if there is a
variable named undefined in scope (variable name will be mangled, typically
reduced to a single character)
unused (default: true) -- drop unreferenced functions and variables (simple
direct variable assignments do not count as references unless set to "keep_assign")
eval (default false) -- Pass true to mangle names visible in scopes
where eval or with are used.
keep_fnames (default false) -- Pass true to not mangle function names.
Useful for code relying on Function.prototype.name. See also: the keep_fnames
compress option.
reserved (default []) -- Pass an array of identifiers that should be
excluded from mangling. Example: ["foo", "bar"].
toplevel (default false) -- Pass true to mangle names declared in the
top level scope.
Examples:
// test.js
var globalVar;
function funcName(firstLongName, anotherLongName) {
var myVariable = firstLongName + anotherLongName;
}
var code = fs.readFileSync("test.js", "utf8");
UglifyJS.minify(code).code;
// 'function funcName(a,n){}var globalVar;'
UglifyJS.minify(code, { mangle: { reserved: ['firstLongName'] } }).code;
// 'function funcName(firstLongName,a){}var globalVar;'
UglifyJS.minify(code, { mangle: { toplevel: true } }).code;
// 'function n(n,a){}var a;'
builtins (default: false) -- Use true to allow the mangling of builtin
DOM properties. Not recommended to override this setting.
debug (default: false) -— Mangle names with the original name still present.
Pass an empty string "" to enable, or a non-empty string to set the debug suffix.
keep_quoted (default: false) -— Only mangle unquoted property names.
regex (default: null) -— Pass a RegExp literal to only mangle property
names matching the regular expression.
reserved (default: []) -- Do not mangle property names listed in the
reserved array.
The code generator tries to output shortest code possible by default. In
case you want beautified output, pass --beautify (-b). Optionally you
can pass additional arguments that control the code output:
ascii_only (default false) -- escape Unicode characters in strings and
regexps (affects directives with non-ascii characters becoming invalid)
beautify (default true) -- whether to actually beautify the output.
Passing -b will set this to true, but you might need to pass -b even
when you want to generate minified code, in order to specify additional
arguments, so you can use -b beautify=false to override it.
braces (default false) -- always insert braces in if, for,
do, while or with statements, even if their body is a single
statement.
comments (default false) -- pass true or "all" to preserve all
comments, "some" to preserve multi-line comments that contain @cc_on,
@license, or @preserve (case-insensitive), a regular expression string
(e.g. /^!/), or a function which returns boolean, e.g.
function(node, comment) {
return comment.value.indexOf("@type " + node.TYPE) >= 0;
}
indent_level (default 4)
indent_start (default 0) -- prefix all lines by that many spaces
inline_script (default true) -- escape HTML comments and the slash in
occurrences of </script> in strings
keep_quoted_props (default false) -- when turned on, prevents stripping
quotes from property names in object literals.
max_line_len (default false) -- maximum line length (for uglified code)
preamble (default null) -- when passed it must be a string and
it will be prepended to the output literally. The source map will
adjust for this text. Can be used to insert a comment containing
licensing information, for example.
preserve_line (default false) -- pass true to retain line numbering on
a best effort basis.
quote_keys (default false) -- pass true to quote all keys in literal
objects
quote_style (default 0) -- preferred quote style for strings (affects
quoted property names and directives as well):
0 -- prefers double quotes, switches to single quotes when there are
more double quotes in the string itself. 0 is best for gzip size.1 -- always use single quotes2 -- always use double quotes3 -- always use the original quotessemicolons (default true) -- separate statements with semicolons. If
you pass false then whenever possible we will use a newline instead of a
semicolon, leading to more readable output of uglified code (size before
gzip could be smaller; size after gzip insignificantly larger).
shebang (default true) -- preserve shebang #! in preamble (bash scripts)
webkit (default false) -- enable workarounds for WebKit bugs.
PhantomJS users should set this option to true.
width (default 80) -- only takes effect when beautification is on, this
specifies an (orientative) line width that the beautifier will try to
obey. It refers to the width of the line text (excluding indentation).
It doesn't work very well currently, but it does make the code generated
by UglifyJS more readable.
wrap_iife (default false) -- pass true to wrap immediately invoked
function expressions. See
#640 for more details.
You can pass --comments to retain certain comments in the output. By
default it will keep JSDoc-style comments that contain "@preserve",
"@license" or "@cc_on" (conditional compilation for IE). You can pass
--comments all to keep all the comments, or a valid JavaScript regexp to
keep only comments that match this regexp. For example --comments /^!/
will keep comments like /*! Copyright Notice */.
Note, however, that there might be situations where comments are lost. For example:
function f() {
/** @preserve Foo Bar */
function g() {
// this function is never called
}
return something();
}
Even though it has "@preserve", the comment will be lost because the inner
function g (which is the AST node to which the comment is attached to) is
discarded by the compressor as not referenced.
The safest comments where to place copyright information (or other info that needs to be kept in the output) are comments attached to toplevel nodes.
unsafe compress optionIt enables some transformations that might break code logic in certain contrived cases, but should be fine for most code. You might want to try it on your own code, it should reduce the minified size. Here's what happens when this flag is on:
new Array(1, 2, 3) or Array(1, 2, 3) → [ 1, 2, 3 ]new Object() → {}String(exp) or exp.toString() → "" + expnew Object/RegExp/Function/Error/Array (...) → we discard the newYou can use the --define (-d) switch in order to declare global
variables that UglifyJS will assume to be constants (unless defined in
scope). For example if you pass --define DEBUG=false then, coupled with
dead code removal UglifyJS will discard the following from the output:
if (DEBUG) {
console.log("debug stuff");
}
You can specify nested constants in the form of --define env.DEBUG=false.
UglifyJS will warn about the condition being always false and about dropping
unreachable code; for now there is no option to turn off only this specific
warning, you can pass warnings=false to turn off all warnings.
Another way of doing that is to declare your globals as constants in a
separate file and include it into the build. For example you can have a
build/defines.js file with the following:
var DEBUG = false;
var PRODUCTION = true;
// etc.
and build your code like this:
uglifyjs build/defines.js js/foo.js js/bar.js... -c
UglifyJS will notice the constants and, since they cannot be altered, it
will evaluate references to them to the value itself and drop unreachable
code as usual. The build will contain the const declarations if you use
them. If you are targeting < ES6 environments which does not support const,
using var with reduce_vars (enabled by default) should suffice.
You can also use conditional compilation via the programmatic API. With the difference that the
property name is global_defs and is a compressor property:
var result = UglifyJS.minify(fs.readFileSync("input.js", "utf8"), {
compress: {
dead_code: true,
global_defs: {
DEBUG: false
}
}
});
To replace an identifier with an arbitrary non-constant expression it is
necessary to prefix the global_defs key with "@" to instruct UglifyJS
to parse the value as an expression:
UglifyJS.minify("alert('hello');", {
compress: {
global_defs: {
"@alert": "console.log"
}
}
}).code;
// returns: 'console.log("hello");'
Otherwise it would be replaced as string literal:
UglifyJS.minify("alert('hello');", {
compress: {
global_defs: {
"alert": "console.log"
}
}
}).code;
// returns: '"console.log"("hello");'
minify()// example: parse only, produce native Uglify AST
var result = UglifyJS.minify(code, {
parse: {},
compress: false,
mangle: false,
output: {
ast: true,
code: false // optional - faster if false
}
});
// result.ast contains native Uglify AST
// example: accept native Uglify AST input and then compress and mangle
// to produce both code and native AST.
var result = UglifyJS.minify(ast, {
compress: {},
mangle: {},
output: {
ast: true,
code: true // optional - faster if false
}
});
// result.ast contains native Uglify AST
// result.code contains the minified code in string form.
Transversal and transformation of the native AST can be performed through
TreeWalker and
TreeTransformer
respectively.
UglifyJS has its own abstract syntax tree format; for practical reasons we can't easily change to using the SpiderMonkey AST internally. However, UglifyJS now has a converter which can import a SpiderMonkey AST.
For example Acorn is a super-fast parser that produces a SpiderMonkey AST. It has a small CLI utility that parses one file and dumps the AST in JSON on the standard output. To use UglifyJS to mangle and compress that:
acorn file.js | uglifyjs -p spidermonkey -m -c
The -p spidermonkey option tells UglifyJS that all input files are not
JavaScript, but JS code described in SpiderMonkey AST in JSON. Therefore we
don't use our own parser in this case, but just transform that AST into our
internal AST.
More for fun, I added the -p acorn option which will use Acorn to do all
the parsing. If you pass this option, UglifyJS will require("acorn").
Acorn is really fast (e.g. 250ms instead of 380ms on some 650K code), but converting the SpiderMonkey tree that Acorn produces takes another 150ms so in total it's a bit more than just using UglifyJS's own parser.
It's not well known, but whitespace removal and symbol mangling accounts
for 95% of the size reduction in minified code for most JavaScript - not
elaborate code transforms. One can simply disable compress to speed up
Uglify builds by 3 to 4 times. In this fast mangle-only mode Uglify has
comparable minify speeds and gzip sizes to
butternut:
| d3.js | minify size | gzip size | minify time (seconds) |
|---|---|---|---|
| original | 451,131 | 108,733 | - |
| uglify-js@3.0.24 mangle=false, compress=false | 316,600 | 85,245 | 0.70 |
| uglify-js@3.0.24 mangle=true, compress=false | 220,216 | 72,730 | 1.13 |
| butternut@0.4.6 | 217,568 | 72,738 | 1.41 |
| uglify-js@3.0.24 mangle=true, compress=true | 212,511 | 71,560 | 3.36 |
| babili@0.1.4 | 210,713 | 72,140 | 12.64 |
To enable fast minify mode from the CLI use:
uglifyjs file.js -m
To enable fast minify mode with the API use:
UglifyJS.minify(code, { compress: false, mangle: true });
Various compress transforms that simplify, rearrange, inline and remove code
are known to have an adverse effect on debugging with source maps. This is
expected as code is optimized and mappings are often simply not possible as
some code no longer exists. For highest fidelity in source map debugging
disable the Uglify compress option and just use mangle.
To allow for better optimizations, the compiler makes various assumptions:
.toString() and .valueOf() don't have side effects, and for built-in
objects they have not been overridden.undefined, NaN and Infinity have not been externally redefined.arguments.callee, arguments.caller and Function.prototype.caller are not used.Function.prototype.toString() or
Error.prototype.stack to be anything in particular..watch() or Proxy).Object.defineProperty(), Object.defineProperties(), Object.freeze(),
Object.preventExtensions() or Object.seal()).FAQs
JavaScript parser, mangler/compressor and beautifier toolkit
The npm package uglify-js receives a total of 0 weekly downloads. As such, uglify-js popularity was classified as not popular.
We found that uglify-js demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 3 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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