Automatic merging and versioning of CSS/JS files with PHP

Most sites include a number of CSS and JavaScript files. Whilst developing it's usually easier to manage them as separate files but on a live site it makes sense to merge files to reduce the number of HTTP requests the browser has to make. For JavaScript this is particularly important as browsers block rendering whilst downloading. It's also important to version your files to ensure that browsers download the latest copies when you've made changes.

I hate maintaining this stuff manually so I've written a PHP script which takes care of merging files on the fly whilst also versioning the merged file automatically as the various component files change. The file is merged on first request and cached. Subsequent requests are served the cached version. The script also sets HTTP headers to ensure the user's browser maintains each version in its own local cache therefore preventing repeated requests to the server. Finally an archive of the merged files is maintained to ensure that requests for old versions return the relevant CSS/JavaScript rather than the latest which might not match the user's cached HTML.

more info
http://www.ejeliot.com/blog/72

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jack of all trades, master of none
http://www.mieloma.com/ - http://www.casimedicos.com/ - http://www.egalego.com/ - http://www.casimedicos.com.es/ - http://www.medicosmir.com/

Adding JSMin to my CSS/JS merging script

I've extended my CSS/JS merging script to support piping the merged output through JSMin, assuming you're merging JavaScript of course. The result is a significantly lower file size. As the resulting file is cached to disk the minification process will only be run once rather than on each request.

I've resisted writing a new PHP version of JSMin (there is already a command line version) and have instead used Douglas Crockford's original C version run through shell_exec.

Note: To use shell_exec you'll need to ensure the installation of PHP on your server isn't using safe_mode. Web hosts which don't impose safe_mode restrictions include DreamHost and Media Temple.

http://www.ejeliot.com/blog/73

____________
jack of all trades, master of none
http://www.mieloma.com/ - http://www.casimedicos.com/ - http://www.egalego.com/ - http://www.casimedicos.com.es/ - http://www.medicosmir.com/

Nice, I'll try it. Thanks.

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Luca
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