How to minify "a priori" php files that output javascript?

Question

We have some PHP files that output JavaScript code. I know things could have been different, but that was a decision taken during the start of the project.

We have several PHP files which generate Javascript files, something like:

<?php Header("content-type: application/x-javascript");
if(strlen($_GET['country']) != 2){ exit;} //avoids code injection 
include_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/countries/'.$_GET['country'].'.php');?>

/*Define GLOBAL Javascript variables*/
var COUNTRY = "<?php echo $GLOBALS["country"]; ?>";
/*Language code according to ISO_639-1 codes*/
var LANGUAGE = "<?php echo $lang_CT[$GLOBALS["country"]]; ?>";
...

What is the best way to minify that code a priori, i.e., not when the file is called or echoed, but on the server, using the Javascript minifying rules?

edit: I've been thinking and things might be complex to achieve, I imagine this case of invalid JS code:

var str = <?php echo "'a string';"; ?>

which outputs a valid JS code

var str = 'a string';

but basically I was wondering if there is any basic minifying option, to remove double spaces, comments and breaklines, which would then not affect the generated JS code.

Is there a reason you want to minify the php code? Since it will be run on the server anyways, you don't need to save on data transfer (the main reason for minified code) — daniel
– daniel, Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 0:06
How does if(strlen($_GET['country']) != 2){ exit;} avoid code injection? — BeetleJuice
– BeetleJuice, Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 0:14
@DanLynch I believe OP wants to minify the Javascript that the php is generating. — user5051310
– user5051310, Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 0:14
@BeetleJuice ... ever tried to put some invalid pathname in two characters addressing a completely different file? — Thomas Urban
– Thomas Urban, Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 0:15
@JoãoPimentelFerreira I keep stumbling over your intention to minify a priori: what do you mean by that? If you don't want to minify on running the script due to some request you might use some server-side CLI to e.g. run this as part of an installation script. Still this would create files on server which is perfect in case of minify as it's creating files. If doing it in an install script isn't flexible enough you might want to use some server-side caching which is minifying the file unless it was minified in a previous request. This requires writing Javascript code to file again. — Thomas Urban
– Thomas Urban, Commented Aug 13, 2017 at 11:09

Thomas Urban · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-14 21:22:59Z

AFAIK there is no support for achieving this as an integrated feature of PHP as you obviously want to minify code which is actually ignored by PHP due to not residing in process instructions <?php and ?>. So you will need to process your PHP code with another tool. If that is to be written in PHP, too, I might give the following code fragment a try:

$sequence = preg_split( '/(<\?php|<\?=|\?>)/', $phpFileCode, null, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE );

$isPHP = false;
foreach ( $sequence as &$segment ) {
  switch ( $segment ) {
    case '<?php' :
    case '<?=' :
      $isPHP = true;
      break;
    case '?>' :
      $isPHP = false;
      break;
    default :
      if ( !$isPHP ) {
        $segment = preg_replace( array(
          '#\s*/\*.*?\*/\s*#', // matching multi-line comments
          '#\s*//.*$#m',       // matching single-line comments
          '#\s+#',             // matching arbitrary sequences of whitespace incl. multiple blank lines
        ), array( 
          ' ',
          ' ',
          ' ',
        ) );
      }
  }
}

$phpCodeMinified = implode( '', $sequence );

Note: This code is just a scribble ... I haven't tested it, but I think it's pointing towards some quite simple approach.

A more elaborate approach might

use this code to replace all PHP process instruction sequences with some special global variable name in Javascript rather than detecting segments not belonging to PHP. E.g. use names like window.__PHPreplacedXXXX where XXXX is the numeric index of an array the whole replaced PHP segment has been pushed to for recovery in step 3 below. By using global names they won't be mangled in next step.
mangle the resulting code using some JS minifier such as uglify or minify referenced before.
process the resulting minified JS file and revert previous replacement of PHP sequences with global names.

This might enable use of more aggressive minification, but might result in broken JS code either when minifier is optimizing and reorganizing code. The risk isn't that high though when sticking with "simple" minifiers.

Mav · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-13 00:52:05Z

-1

Here's what I would do; put all the Javascript in a variable using Heredoc, for example:

$js = <<<EOD
console.log('Valar Morgulis');

console.log('Valar Dohaeris');
EOD;

Then use the minify_js() function that can be found here on Github, or something similar. Here's the function:

function minify_js($input) {
if(trim($input) === "") return $input;
return preg_replace(
    array(
        // Remove comment(s)
        '#\s*("(?:[^"\\\]++|\\\.)*+"|\'(?:[^\'\\\\]++|\\\.)*+\')\s*|\s*\/\*(?!\!|@cc_on)(?>[\s\S]*?\*\/)\s*|\s*(?<![\:\=])\/\/.*(?=[\n\r]|$)|^\s*|\s*$#',
        // Remove white-space(s) outside the string and regex
        '#("(?:[^"\\\]++|\\\.)*+"|\'(?:[^\'\\\\]++|\\\.)*+\'|\/\*(?>.*?\*\/)|\/(?!\/)[^\n\r]*?\/(?=[\s.,;]|[gimuy]|$))|\s*([!%&*\(\)\-=+\[\]\{\}|;:,.<>?\/])\s*#s',
        // Remove the last semicolon
        '#;+\}#',
        // Minify object attribute(s) except JSON attribute(s). From `{'foo':'bar'}` to `{foo:'bar'}`
        '#([\{,])([\'])(\d+|[a-z_][a-z0-9_]*)\2(?=\:)#i',
        // --ibid. From `foo['bar']` to `foo.bar`
        '#([a-z0-9_\)\]])\[([\'"])([a-z_][a-z0-9_]*)\2\]#i'
    ),
    array(
        '$1',
        '$1$2',
        '}',
        '$1$3',
        '$1.$3'
    ),
$input);
}

minify_js($js); would get you the minified JS. You can use variables inside Heredoc, more information here.

answered Aug 13, 2017 at 0:52

Mav

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9 Comments

João Pimentel Ferreira Over a year ago

but then it minifies when the file is echoed, and not a priori on the server

Mav Over a year ago

@JoãoPimentelFerreira are you running the JavaScript on the server? Usually JavaScript is used as a client side language, so minifying it on echo is what you want.

João Pimentel Ferreira Over a year ago

I know Javascript is client side and php is server side, but minifying as it is echoed takes time, and processing time is very important to us, so that is not an option. I was wondering if there is any basic minifying option, such as double blank lines, comments and breaklines. That would be possible to do directly on the PHP file.

Mav Over a year ago

@JoãoPimentelFerreira so you mean you'd like to minify all the JavaScript inside your PHP files? Something like passing each PHP file generating js through an additional PHP script as part of production to minify?

Niet the Dark Absol Over a year ago

@JoãoPimentelFerreira If you're seriously squeezing to the point that running a basic regex minification is "too much", then you wouldn't be generating JS files with PHP in the first place, you would have pre-generated JS files such as en.js, fr.js...

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