A "little bastard" BUG using JSmin parsers

Update
It seems I found a valid fix for "strange" regular expressions. I suppose MyMin will be available tomorrow while packed.it has been just updated with last client version.

Have fun with packed.it and please tell me if some source cannot be parsed.





--------------------------------------
While I was testing every kind of source and CSS with my last creation, packed.it, I found a bug on JSmin logic, partially recoded inside MyMin project as JavaScript minifier (MyMinCSS and MyMinCompressor seem to work perfectly).

This bug seems to be present on every version linked in JSmin page.

I found this bug parsing jQuery UI + every CSS with my new service but one JavaScript file has one single, simple problem:

function(){return /reg exp with this ' char/;}

Bye bye JSmin, regexp will be parsed as string and an error will be raised.

The problem is reproducible just with a string that contains only this (so a source that begins and end with these 3 chars):

/'/

that's a normal regexp ... at this point I can be happy to found first packed.it and MyMin project bug and the coolest thing is that is inside a part of project that's not really mine :D

To solve this problem, just use
return new RegExp
or just asign reg to a var before return them ... it seems to be the only one bug I found parsing every kind of source. Did anyone solve them?

I know it's not so simple, just because a char by char parser cannot simply know if slash is for a division, a comment or a regexp.

Do You have any sugest to solve this problem? It will be really appreciated! :-)

Are You Ready To Pack ?

I'm pleased to announce my last revolutionary project called packed.it !

Just another minifier packer alternative ???

No guys! packed.it goals is to reduce using best practices both CSS and JavaScript sources in a single file.
You can write directly on JS area or in CSS one or upload one or more file, choosing which one should be executed before others.
Based on MyMin project, a personal revisit of JSmin plus a dedicated compressor and a CSS minifier for C#, JavaScript, PHP or Python languages, packed.it creates a project archive, in zip format, that will contain everything You need to server your files gzipped, deflated or clear for browsers or robots that does not support gz pages.

Not only JavaScript !

The innovative packed.it idea is to process both JavaScript and CSS to create a single project file just compiled to be served using gzip, deflate or clear text.
In this case your server will not need to do anything, just serve correct file verifying its sha1 summary to choose it browser need to download them or use them from its cache.
Any other JavaScript compressor system includes possibility to pack CSS too and the reason is really simple.

How many times You write CSS dedicated only for your client library?
How many times You use words such div, body, li, #some-id, float, width inside CSS using same words inside JavaScript too?
Think about document.body, var li, getElementsByTagName("div"), getElementById("some-id"), setStyle("width") and so on.

My personal compressor, inspired by fantastic Dean Edwards packer idea, creates a single list of keywords used inside both CSS and JavScript sources.

Its simple but efficient algorithm counts how many times one word is present inside merged sources, CSS + JavaScript, and orders them to put most common words at the begin of keywords list, moving before words with length bigger than others.

In few words, every word will be replaced inside source reducing its size from 30% to 60% and if browser is compatible with gzip or deflate, final size should be even less than 20% of original one.

Do You want to know more about MyMin ?

MyMin is originally based on JSmin C implementation but it was partially rewrote to be compatible with JavaScript conditional comments too (for example: /*@cc_on @*/ and //@cc_on) while MyMinCSS is a simply but powerful minifier dedicated only for CSS and totally wrote by myself.

Do You want to know more about MyMin Compressor ?

MyMin Compressor works with every kind of source. This mean that You don't need to respect any rule when You write your JS or CSS code just because it doesn't modify original output and result will be exactly the same.
Its also based on fastest decompression algorithm I could thought and sources parsed with this Compressor will be available quickly even using old computers.

Its decompression procedure is compatible with every recent browser (IE 5.5 or greater, FireFox 1 or greater, Safari 2 or greater, KDE 3 or greater, Opera 7 or greater, NetScape 6 or greater, others too!) and should be compatible with old browsers too just adding a little function like this one before decompression (required only with IE5 or lower).

Do You need something else to choose packed.it ?

I hope there's no reason to don't use packed.it service:

• it's innovative


• it's free


• it's compatible with W3 validator and WatchFire too (WAI-AAA friendly)

Ok, I know, It's beta ... but it's just working so please tell me some question to create a useful F.A.Q. site section or tell me if something doesn't work as expected.

Regards, and have fun with Web 2.0 technologies !

P.S. I'm working to include a C# and Python variant to packed.it.php file (gzipped and deflated files just works with every language).
If You want to do it for me before I'll do that, please tell me and I'll put your credits in dedicated page, thank You :-)



Example using Ext (all both for JS and CSS)
ext-all.js + ex-all.css ... original size: 559.90 Kb
after packed.it conversion: one file, total size: 129.81 Kb :-)

Example using jQuery + jQuery UI + every CSS theme
From 260 Kb to 40Kb , about 15% :-)

Example using bytefx
From 18 Kb to 1.5 Kb , about 8% and Yessss, less than 2kb! :-)


Update
Please note that packed.it is beta and not totally debugged with different browsers.
However to be sure your JavaScript enabled browser is compatible with packed.it result projects just visit this page.

If You can read a text over a background #DDD body, Your browser is compatible with packed.it produced code.

Extended parseInt and toString with radix

With JavaScript You can parse a Number using its toString native function.
This one supports a radix argument, an integer between 1 and 37.

alert(
 (10).toString(16) // a
);

alert(
 (35).toString(36) // z
);

This method should be really useful but should be used to reduce integer size too.
The limit of this function is its max usable radix, 36, but is possible to extend this one? Of course :-)

alert([
 (35).toString(63), // z
 (61).toString(63), // Z
 (62).toString(63)  // _
]);

My Base63 implementation allows both toString(radix) and parseInt functions to be compatible with maximum possible radix.

For possible I mean only these chars: [0-9] [a-z] [A-Z] plus last special char _

These chars are compatible with \w RegExp syntax and this means that You can use less than 60% of chars to rappresent an integer value.

var myInt = 123456789012345,
 myTinyInt = myInt.toString(63);

alert([
 String(myInt).length, // 15
 myTinyInt.length, // 8
 myInt,   // 123456789012345
 myTinyInt  // vlzFV_Fx
]);

At this point, with a small code overload, You could quickly trasform every \w match into original integer value.

alert(
 "vlzFV_Fx.Az49_7".replace(
  /\w+/g,
  function(s){var b="0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_",l=s.length,p=0,r=0;while(l--)r+=Math.pow(63,l)*b.indexOf(s.charAt(p++));return r}
  )
); // 123456789012345.36280109005

Interesting? Just think, for example, about an array of integers and a JSON like client/server interaction.

I hope this will be useful, regards.