What is clean-css?
Clean-css is a fast and efficient Node.js library for minifying CSS files.
According to tests it is one of the best available.
Usage
What are the requirements?
How to install clean-css?
How to use clean-css CLI?
Clean-css accepts the following command line arguments (please make sure you use <source-file> as the very last argument to avoid potential issues):
Examples:
To minify a public.css file into public-min.css do:
To minify the same public.css into the standard output skip the -o parameter:
More likely you would like to concatenate a couple of files. If you are on a Unix-like system:
On Windows:
Or even gzip the result at once:
How to use clean-css API?
CleanCSS constructor accepts a hash as a parameter, i.e., new CleanCSS(options) with the following options available:
advanced- set to false to disable advanced optimizations - selector & property merging, reduction, etc.aggressiveMerging- set to false to disable aggressive merging of properties.benchmark- turns on benchmarking mode measuring time spent on cleaning up (runnpm run benchto see example)compatibility- enables compatibility mode, see below for more examplesdebug- set to true to get minification statistics understatsproperty (seetest/custom-test.jsfor examples)inliner- a hash of options for@importinliner, see test/protocol-imports-test.js for examples, or this commentfor a proxy use case.keepBreaks- whether to keep line breaks (default is false)keepSpecialComments-*for keeping all (default),1for keeping first one only,0for removing allmediaMerging- whether to merge@mediaat-rules (default is true)processImport- whether to process@importrulesprocessImportFrom- a list of@importrules, can be['all'](default),['local'],['remote'], or a blacklisted path e.g.['!fonts.googleapis.com']rebase- set to false to skip URL rebasingrelativeTo- path to resolve relative@importrules and URLsrestructuring- set to false to disable restructuring in advanced optimizationsroot- path to resolve absolute@importrules and rebase relative URLsroundingPrecision- rounding precision; defaults to2;-1disables roundingsemanticMerging- set to true to enable semantic merging mode which assumes BEM-like content (default is false as it's highly likely this will break your stylesheets - use with caution!)shorthandCompacting- set to false to skip shorthand compacting (default is true unless sourceMap is set when it's false)sourceMap- exposes source map undersourceMapproperty, e.g.new CleanCSS().minify(source).sourceMap(default is false) If input styles are a product of CSS preprocessor (Less, Sass) an input source map can be passed as a string.sourceMapInlineSources- set to true to inline sources inside a source map'ssourcesContentfield (defaults to false) It is also required to process inlined sources from input source maps.target- path to a folder or an output file to which rebase all URLs
The output of minify method (or the 2nd argument to passed callback) is a hash containing the following fields:
styles- optimized output CSS as a stringsourceMap- output source map (if requested withsourceMapoption)errors- a list of errors raisedwarnings- a list of warnings raisedstats- a hash of statistic information (if requested withdebugoption):originalSize- original content size (after import inlining)minifiedSize- optimized content sizetimeSpent- time spent on optimizationsefficiency- a ratio of output size to input size (e.g. 25% if content was reduced from 100 bytes to 75 bytes)
How to make sure remote @imports are processed correctly?
In order to inline remote @import statements you need to provide a callback to minify method, e.g.:
This is due to a fact, that, while local files can be read synchronously, remote resources can only be processed asynchronously. If you don't provide a callback, then remote @imports will be left intact.
How to use clean-css with build tools?
- Broccoli: broccoli-clean-css
- Brunch: clean-css-brunch
- Grunt: grunt-contrib-cssmin
- Gulp: gulp-minify-css
- Gulp: using vinyl-map as a wrapper - courtesy of @sogko
- component-builder2: builder-clean-css
- Metalsmith: metalsmith-clean-css
- Lasso: lasso-clean-css
What are the clean-css' dev commands?
First clone the source, then run:
npm run benchfor clean-css benchmarks (see test/bench.js for details)npm run browserifyto create the browser-ready clean-css versionnpm run checkto check JS sources with JSHintnpm testfor the test suite
How to contribute to clean-css?
See CONTRIBUTING.md.
Tips & Tricks
How to preserve a comment block?
Use the /*! notation instead of the standard one /*:
How to rebase relative image URLs?
Clean-css will handle it automatically for you (since version 1.1) in the following cases:
- When using the CLI:
- Use an output path via
-o/--outputto rebase URLs as relative to the output file. - Use a root path via
-r/--rootto rebase URLs as absolute from the given root path. - If you specify both then
-r/--roottakes precendence.
- Use an output path via
- When using clean-css as a library:
- Use a combination of
relativeToandtargetoptions for relative rebase (same as 1 in CLI). - Use a combination of
relativeToandrootoptions for absolute rebase (same as 2 in CLI). roottakes precendence overtargetas in CLI.
- Use a combination of
How to generate source maps?
Source maps are supported since version 3.0.
Additionally to mapping original CSS files, clean-css also supports input source maps, so minified styles can be mapped into their Less or Sass sources directly.
Source maps are generated using source-map module from Mozilla.
Using CLI
To generate a source map, use --source-map switch, e.g.:
Name of the output file is required, so a map file, named by adding .map suffix to output file name, can be created (styles.min.css.map in this case).
Using API
To generate a source map, use sourceMap: true option, e.g.:
Using API you can also pass an input source map directly:
Or even multiple input source maps at once (available since version 3.1):
How to minify multiple files with API?
Passing an array
Passing a hash
How to set a compatibility mode?
Compatibility settings are controlled by --compatibility switch (CLI) and compatibility option (library mode).
In both modes the following values are allowed:
'ie7'- Internet Explorer 7 compatibility mode'ie8'- Internet Explorer 8 compatibility mode''or'*'(default) - Internet Explorer 9+ compatibility mode
Since clean-css 3 a fine grained control is available over those settings, with the following options available:
'[+-]colors.opacity'- - turn on (+) / off (-)rgba()/hsla()declarations removal'[+-]properties.backgroundClipMerging'- turn on / off background-clip merging into shorthand'[+-]properties.backgroundOriginMerging'- turn on / off background-origin merging into shorthand'[+-]properties.backgroundSizeMerging'- turn on / off background-size merging into shorthand'[+-]properties.colors'- turn on / off any color optimizations'[+-]properties.ieBangHack'- turn on / off IE bang hack removal'[+-]properties.iePrefixHack'- turn on / off IE prefix hack removal'[+-]properties.ieSuffixHack'- turn on / off IE suffix hack removal'[+-]properties.merging'- turn on / off property merging based on understandability'[+-]properties.spaceAfterClosingBrace'- turn on / off removing space after closing brace -url() no-repeatintourl()no-repeat'[+-]properties.urlQuotes'- turn on / offurl()quoting'[+-]properties.zeroUnits'- turn on / off units removal after a0value'[+-]selectors.adjacentSpace'- turn on / off extra space beforenavelement'[+-]selectors.ie7Hack'- turn on / off IE7 selector hack removal (*+html...)'[+-]selectors.special'- a regular expression with all special, unmergeable selectors (leave it empty unless you know what you are doing)'[+-]units.ch'- turn on / off treatingchas a proper unit'[+-]units.in'- turn on / off treatinginas a proper unit'[+-]units.pc'- turn on / off treatingpcas a proper unit'[+-]units.pt'- turn on / off treatingptas a proper unit'[+-]units.rem'- turn on / off treatingremas a proper unit'[+-]units.vh'- turn on / off treatingvhas a proper unit'[+-]units.vm'- turn on / off treatingvmas a proper unit'[+-]units.vmax'- turn on / off treatingvmaxas a proper unit'[+-]units.vmin'- turn on / off treatingvminas a proper unit'[+-]units.vm'- turn on / off treatingvmas a proper unit
For example, using --compatibility 'ie8,+units.rem' will ensure IE8 compatibility while enabling rem units so the following style margin:0px 0rem can be shortened to margin:0, while in pure IE8 mode it can't be.
To pass a single off (-) switch in CLI please use the following syntax --compatibility *,-units.rem.
In library mode you can also pass compatibility as a hash of options.
What advanced optimizations are applied?
All advanced optimizations are dispatched here, and this is what they do:
recursivelyOptimizeBlocks- does all the following operations on a block (think@mediaor@keyframeat-rules);recursivelyOptimizeProperties- optimizes properties in rulesets and "flat at-rules" (like @font-face) by splitting them into components (e.g.marginintomargin-(*)), optimizing, and rebuilding them back. You may want to useshorthandCompactingoption to control whether you want to turn multiple (long-hand) properties into a shorthand ones;removeDuplicates- gets rid of duplicate rulesets with exactly the same set of properties (think of including the same Sass / Less partial twice for no good reason);mergeAdjacent- merges adjacent rulesets with the same selector or rules;reduceNonAdjacent- identifies which properties are overridden in same-selector non-adjacent rulesets, and removes them;mergeNonAdjacentBySelector- identifies same-selector non-adjacent rulesets which can be moved (!) to be merged, requires all intermediate rulesets to not redefine the moved properties, or if redefined to be either more coarse grained (e.g.marginvsmargin-top) or have the same value;mergeNonAdjacentByBody- same as the one above but for same-rules non-adjacent rulesets;restructure- tries to reorganize different-selector different-rules rulesets so they take less space, e.g..one{padding:0}.two{margin:0}.one{margin-bottom:3px}into.two{margin:0}.one{padding:0;margin-bottom:3px};removeDuplicateMediaQueries- removes duplicated@mediaat-rules;mergeMediaQueries- merges non-adjacent@mediaat-rules by same rules asmergeNonAdjacentBy*above;
Acknowledgments (sorted alphabetically)
- Anthony Barre (@abarre) for improvements to
@importprocessing, namely introducing the--skip-import/processImportoptions. - Simon Altschuler (@altschuler) for fixing
@importprocessing inside comments. - Isaac (@facelessuser) for pointing out a flaw in clean-css' stateless mode.
- Jan Michael Alonzo (@jmalonzo) for a patch removing node.js' old
syspackage. - Luke Page (@lukeapage) for suggestions and testing the source maps feature. Plus everyone else involved in#125 for pushing it forward.
- Timur Kristóf (@Venemo) for an outstanding contribution of advanced property optimizer for 2.2 release.
- Vincent Voyer (@vvo) for a patch with better empty element regex and for inspiring us to do many performance improvements in 0.4 release.
- @XhmikosR for suggesting new features (option to remove special comments and strip out URLs quotation) and pointing out numerous improvements (JSHint, media queries).
License
Clean-css is released under the MIT License.