Minification (programming): Difference between revisions

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'''Minification''' (also '''minimisation''' or '''minimization''') is the process of removing all unnecessary characters from the [[source code]] of [[Interpreted language|interpreted programming languages]] or [[markup language]]s without changing its functionality. These unnecessary characters usually include [[Whitespacewhitespace (computer science)|white space characterscharacter]]s, [[Newline|new line characters]], [[source code comment|comments]], and sometimes [[Curly bracket programming language|block delimiters]], which are used to add readability to the code but are not required for it to execute. Minification reduces the size of the source code, making its transmission over a network (e.g. the Internet) more efficient. In programmer culture, aiming at extremely minified source code is the purpose of recreational [[code golf]] competitions.

Minification can be distinguished from the more general concept of [[data compression]] in that the minified source can be interpreted immediately without the need for a decompression step: the same interpreter can work with both the original as well as with the minified source.