css-condense

Compresses CSS, and isn't conservative about it.

Installation

Install NodeJS, and:

$ npm install -g css-condense

Usage

$ cssc file.css > file.min.css

Or via NodeJS:

require('css-condense').compress("div {color: red}")

What it does

Well, it does a lot of things. The most common of which is:

Whitespace removal

It strips whitespaces. Yeah, well, every CSS compressor out there does that, right?

div {
  color: red;
  width: 100%;
}

Becomes:

div{color:red;width:100%}

Identifier compression

Some identifiers, like pixel values or colors, can be trimmed to save on space.

div { color: #ff0000; }
span { margin: 1px !important; }
h1 { background: none; }
a { padding: 0.30em; }
p { font-family: "Arial Black", sans-serif; }
abbr { background: url("tile.jpg"); }

Can be: (newlines added for readability)

div{color:#f00}                           /* Collapsing 6-digit hex colors to 3 */
span{margin:1px!important}                /* Strip space before !important */
h1{background:0}                          /* Change border/background/outline 'none' to '0' */
a{padding:.3em}                           /* Removing trailing zeroes from numbers */
p{font-family: Arial Black,sans-serif}    /* Font family unquoting */
abbr{background:url(tile.jpg)}            /* URL unquoting */

More compressions

ul { padding: 30px 30px 30px 30px; }
li { margin: 0 auto 0 auto; }
.zero { outline: 0px; }
a + .b { color: blue; }
.color { background: rgb(51,51,51); }

Output:

ul{padding:30px}                          /* Collapsing border/padding values */
li{margin:0 auto}                         /* Same as above */,
.zero{outline:0}                          /* Removing units from zeros */
a+.b{color:blue}                          /* Collapse + and > in selectors */
.color{background:#333}                   /* Converting rgb() values to hex */

Keyframe compressions

css-condense will trim out any unneeded vendor prefixes from keyframes.

@-moz-keyframes twist {
  0% {
    -webkit-transform: rotate(30deg);
    -moz-transform: rotate(30deg);
    -o-transform: rotate(30deg);
  }
  100% {
    -webkit-transform: rotate(0);
    -moz-transform: rotate(0);
    -o-transform: rotate(0);
  }
}

Output:

@-moz-keyframes twist{
0%{-moz-transform:rotate(30deg)}
100%{-moz-transform:rotate(0)}
}

Selector/declaration sorting

Each rule has its selectors and declarations sorted. This may not seem like it will net any effect, but (1) it increases the likelihood that consecutive properties will be gzipped, and (2) it will help consolidation (more on that later).

div, a { z-index: 10; background: green; }

becomes:

a,div{background:green;z-index:10}

The dangerous things it does

But that's not all! Here's where things get exciting! (Don't worry, you can turn these off with the --safe flag.)

Consolidation via selectors

Rules with same selectors can be consolidated.

div { color: blue; }
div { cursor: pointer; }

Can be consolidated into:

div{color:blue;cursor:pointer}

Consolidation via definitions

Rules with same definitions will be consolidated too. Great if you use mixins in your favorite CSS preprocessor mercilessly. (Those clearfixes will totally add up like crazy)

div { color: blue; }
p { color: blue; }

Becomes:

div,p{color:blue}

Media query consolidation

Rules with the same media query will be merged into one. Say:

@media screen and (min-width: 780px) {
  div { width: 100%; }
}
@media screen and (min-width: 780px) {
  p { width: 50%; }
}

Becomes:

@media screen and (min-width:780px){div{width:100%}p{width:50%}}

Command line usage

$ cssc --help

  Usage: cssc [<sourcefile ...>] [options]

  Options:

    -h, --help                         output usage information
    -V, --version                      output the version number
    --no-consolidate-via-declarations  Don't consolidate rules via declarations
    --no-consolidate-via-selectors     Don't consolidate rules via selectors
    --no-consolidate-media-queries     Don't consolidate media queries together
    --no-sort-selectors                Don't sort selectors in a rule
    --no-sort-declarations             Don't sort declarations in a rule
    --no-compress                      Don't strip whitespaces from output
    --no-sort                          Turn off sorting
    --line-breaks                      Add linebreaks
    -S, --safe                         Don't do unsafe operations

  The --no-sort switch turns off all sorting (ie, it implies --no-sort-*).
  The --safe switch turns off all consolidation behavior (ie, it implies --no-consolidate-*).

  If a <sourcefile> is not specified, input from stdin is read instead.
  Examples:

    $ cssc style.css > style.min.css
    $ cat style.css | cssc > style.min.css

Programatic usage

You can use the css-condense NodeJS package, or you can use dist/css-condense.js for the browser.

NodeJS:

var cssc = require('css-condense');
var str = "div { color: blue; }";

cssc.compress(str);
cssc.compress(str, {
  sortSelectors: false,
  lineBreaks: true
});

Or with css-condense.js:

CssCondense.compress(str);

But you'll risk breaking things!

Well, yes. You want a safe approach? Use --safe or go with YUI Compressor.

But hey, css-condense tries its best to make assumptions to ensure that no breakage (or at least minimal breakage) will happen.

For instance, consolidating media queries can go wrong in this case:

/* Restrict height on phones */
@media screen and (max-width: 480px) {
  .box { max-height: 10px; } /* [1] */
}
.box {
  padding: 20px; /* [2] */
}
/* Small screens = less spacing */
@media screen and (max-width: 480px) {
  .box { padding: 10px; } /* [3] */
}
div { color: blue; }

The two media queries have the same query, and will be subject to consolidation. However, if the [3] is to be consolidated into [1], you will not get the effect you want.

/* Bad :( */
@media screen and (max-width:480px){.box{max-height:10px;padding:10px}}
.box{padding:20px}
div{color:blue}

.box's padding is supposed to be overridden to 10px, which in this case, doesn't happen anymore.

css-condense then makes the assumption is that media queries are usually used to override "normal" rules. The effect is that in cases like these, consolidated rels are placed at its last appearance:

/* Good -- css-condense does things this way! */
.box{padding:20px}
@media screen and (max-width:480px){.box{max-height:10px;padding:10px}}
div{color:blue}

However, it indeed isn't perfectly safe: if you have a max-height rule on the regular .box, you're gonna have a bad time.

What about with CSS rules?

css-condense also goes by the assumption that most people put their least specific things on top (like resets).

body, div, h1, p { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
.listing h1 { padding: 10px; }
.item h1 { margin: 0; padding: 0; }

Now if .item is inside .listing, all of these rules affect .listing h1. The final effect is that the h1 will have a padding of 0.

If the consolidation puts things on top, h1 will get a padding of 10px. Not good.

/* Bad :( */
body,div,h1,p,.item h1 { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
.listing h1 { padding: 10px; }

...which is why css-condense assumes that the more specific things are usually at the bottom. This then compresses nicely to:

/* Good -- css-condense knows what's good for you. */
.listing h1 { padding: 10px; }
body,div,h1,p,.item h1 { margin: 0; padding: 0; }

...giving your H1 the right padding: 0.

How's the real-world performance?

I ran it through some real-world CSS files that have already been compressed, and usually get around 5% to 25% more compression out of it.

Example: https://gist.github.com/3583505

But gzip will compress that for you anyway!

Yes, but css-condense will also reduce the number of rules (usually around 10% to 40% less rules!), which can hypothetically make page rendering faster :)

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to TJ Holowaychuk for css-parse which this project uses to parse CSS, and css-stringify which is used to build the final output.

Thanks

css-condense © 2012+, Rico Sta. Cruz. Released under the MIT License.
Authored and maintained by Rico Sta. Cruz with help from contributors.

ricostacruz.com  ·  GitHub @rstacruz  ·  Twitter @rstacruz