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JavaScript

Posted by Alzee Inc
Alzee Inc
5,894 Points

No white space in javascript code?

On website, I often see that their code is written without backspace, whitespace, etc. Like this for example:

function(t){var e={},s={mode:"horizontal",slideSelector:"",infiniteLoop:!0,hideControlOnEnd:!1,speed:500,easing:null,slideMargin:0,startSlide:0,randomStart:!1,captions:!1,ticker:!1,tickerHover:!1,adaptiveHeight:!1,adaptiveHeightSpeed:500,video:!1,useCSS:!0,preloadImages:"visible",responsive:!0,slideZIndex:50,touchEnabled:!0,swipeThreshold:50,oneToOneTouch:!0,preventDefaultSwipeX:!0,preventDefaultSwipeY:!1,pager:!0,pagerType:"full",pagerShortSeparator:" /

Instead of writing it like this:

;(function($){

    var plugin = {};

    var defaults = {

        // GENERAL
        mode: 'horizontal',
        slideSelector: '',
        infiniteLoop: true,
        hideControlOnEnd: false,
        speed: 500,

Is there a reason for that? (Also, this was just a sample from a code, what is written doesn't matter, just how). Thanks :)!

1 Answer

Michael Hess
Michael Hess
24,512 Points

Hi Alzee Inc,

Yes, there is a reason, this is a practice known as minifying. Minified javascript files are ideal for production environments since they typically reduce the size of the file by 30-90% -- which results in a page being loaded faster. Most of the filesize reduction is achieved by removing comments and extra whitespace characters that are not needed by web browsers or visitors.

Here is a link to a site that will minify JavaScript: jscompress

If you have any further questions feel free to ask! Hope this helps!