A JavaScript mangler/compressor toolkit for ES6+.
note: You can support this project on patreon: [link] The Terser Patreon is shutting down in favor of opencollective. Check out PATRONS.md for our first-tier patrons.
Terser recommends you use RollupJS to bundle your modules, as that produces smaller code overall.
Beautification has been undocumented and is being removed from terser, we recommend you use prettier.
Find the changelog in CHANGELOG.md
uglify-es
is no longer maintained and uglify-js
does not support ES6+.
terser
is a fork of uglify-es
that mostly retains API and CLI compatibility
with uglify-es
and uglify-js@3
.
First make sure you have installed the latest version of node.js (You may need to restart your computer after this step).
From NPM for use as a command line app:
npm install terser -g
From NPM for programmatic use:
npm install terser
terser [input files] [options]
Terser can take multiple input files. It's recommended that you pass the input files first, then pass the options. Terser will parse input files in sequence and apply any compression options. The files are parsed in the same global scope, that is, a reference from a file to some variable/function declared in another file will be matched properly.
Command line arguments that take options (like --parse, --compress, --mangle and --format) can take in a comma-separated list of default option overrides. For instance:
terser input.js --compress ecma=2015,computed_props=false
If no input file is specified, Terser will read from STDIN.
If you wish to pass your options before the input files, separate the two with a double dash to prevent input files being used as option arguments:
terser --compress --mangle -- input.js
-h, --help Print usage information.
`--help options` for details on available options.
-V, --version Print version number.
-p, --parse <options> Specify parser options:
`acorn` Use Acorn for parsing.
`bare_returns` Allow return outside of functions.
Useful when minifying CommonJS
modules and Userscripts that may
be anonymous function wrapped (IIFE)
by the .user.js engine `caller`.
`expression` Parse a single expression, rather than
a program (for parsing JSON).
`spidermonkey` Assume input files are SpiderMonkey
AST format (as JSON).
-c, --compress [options] Enable compressor/specify compressor options:
`pure_funcs` List of functions that can be safely
removed when their return values are
not used.
-m, --mangle [options] Mangle names/specify mangler options:
`reserved` List of names that should not be mangled.
--mangle-props [options] Mangle properties/specify mangler options:
`builtins` Mangle property names that overlaps
with standard JavaScript globals and DOM
API props.
`debug` Add debug prefix and suffix.
`keep_quoted` Only mangle unquoted properties, quoted
properties are automatically reserved.
`strict` disables quoted properties
being automatically reserved.
`regex` Only mangle matched property names.
`reserved` List of names that should not be mangled.
-f, --format [options] Specify format options.
`preamble` Preamble to prepend to the output. You
can use this to insert a comment, for
example for licensing information.
This will not be parsed, but the source
map will adjust for its presence.
`quote_style` Quote style:
0 - auto
1 - single
2 - double
3 - original
`wrap_iife` Wrap IIFEs in parenthesis. Note: you may
want to disable `negate_iife` under
compressor options.
`wrap_func_args` Wrap function arguments in parenthesis.
-o, --output <file> Output file path (default STDOUT). Specify `ast` or
`spidermonkey` to write Terser or SpiderMonkey AST
as JSON to STDOUT respectively.
--comments [filter] Preserve copyright comments in the output. By
default this works like Google Closure, keeping
JSDoc-style comments that contain e.g. "@license",
or start with "!". You can optionally pass one of the
following arguments to this flag:
- "all" to keep all comments
- `false` to omit comments in the output
- a valid JS RegExp like `/foo/` or `/^!/` to
keep only matching comments.
Note that currently not *all* comments can be
kept when compression is on, because of dead
code removal or cascading statements into
sequences.
--config-file <file> Read `minify()` options from JSON file.
-d, --define <expr>[=value] Global definitions.
--ecma <version> Specify ECMAScript release: 5, 2015, 2016, etc.
-e, --enclose [arg[:value]] Embed output in a big function with configurable
arguments and values.
--ie8 Support non-standard Internet Explorer 8.
Equivalent to setting `ie8: true` in `minify()`
for `compress`, `mangle` and `format` options.
By default Terser will not try to be IE-proof.
--keep-classnames Do not mangle/drop class names.
--keep-fnames Do not mangle/drop function names. Useful for
code relying on Function.prototype.name.
--module Input is an ES6 module. If `compress` or `mangle` is
enabled then the `toplevel` option will be enabled.
--name-cache <file> File to hold mangled name mappings.
--safari10 Support non-standard Safari 10/11.
Equivalent to setting `safari10: true` in `minify()`
for `mangle` and `format` options.
By default `terser` will not work around
Safari 10/11 bugs.
--source-map [options] Enable source map/specify source map options:
`base` Path to compute relative paths from input files.
`content` Input source map, useful if you're compressing
JS that was generated from some other original
code. Specify "inline" if the source map is
included within the sources.
`filename` Name and/or location of the output source.
`includeSources` Pass this flag if you want to include
the content of source files in the
source map as sourcesContent property.
`root` Path to the original source to be included in
the source map.
`url` If specified, path to the source map to append in
`//# sourceMappingURL`.
--timings Display operations run time on STDERR.
--toplevel Compress and/or mangle variables in top level scope.
--wrap <name> Embed everything in a big function, making the
“exports” and “global” variables available. You
need to pass an argument to this option to
specify the name that your module will take
when included in, say, a browser.
Specify --output
(-o
) to declare the output file. Otherwise the output
goes to STDOUT.
Terser can generate a source map file, which is highly useful for
debugging your compressed JavaScript. To get a source map, pass
--source-map --output output.js
(source map will be written out to
output.js.map
).
Additional options:
-
--source-map "filename='<NAME>'"
to specify the name of the source map. -
--source-map "root='<URL>'"
to pass the URL where the original files can be found. -
--source-map "url='<URL>'"
to specify the URL where the source map can be found. Otherwise Terser assumes HTTPX-SourceMap
is being used and will omit the//# sourceMappingURL=
directive.
For example:
terser js/file1.js js/file2.js \
-o foo.min.js -c -m \
--source-map "root='http://foo.com/src',url='foo.min.js.map'"
The above will compress and mangle file1.js
and file2.js
, will drop the
output in foo.min.js
and the source map in foo.min.js.map
. The source
mapping will refer to http://foo.com/src/js/file1.js
and
http://foo.com/src/js/file2.js
(in fact it will list http://foo.com/src
as the source map root, and the original files as js/file1.js
and
js/file2.js
).
When you're compressing JS code that was output by a compiler such as CoffeeScript, mapping to the JS code won't be too helpful. Instead, you'd like to map back to the original code (i.e. CoffeeScript). Terser has an option to take an input source map. Assuming you have a mapping from CoffeeScript → compiled JS, Terser can generate a map from CoffeeScript → compressed JS by mapping every token in the compiled JS to its original location.
To use this feature pass --source-map "content='/path/to/input/source.map'"
or --source-map "content=inline"
if the source map is included inline with
the sources.
You need to pass --compress
(-c
) to enable the compressor. Optionally
you can pass a comma-separated list of compress options.
Options are in the form foo=bar
, or just foo
(the latter implies
a boolean option that you want to set true
; it's effectively a
shortcut for foo=true
).
Example:
terser file.js -c toplevel,sequences=false
To enable the mangler you need to pass --mangle
(-m
). The following
(comma-separated) options are supported:
-
toplevel
(defaultfalse
) -- mangle names declared in the top level scope. -
eval
(defaultfalse
) -- mangle names visible in scopes whereeval
orwith
are used.
When mangling is enabled but you want to prevent certain names from being
mangled, you can declare those names with --mangle reserved
— pass a
comma-separated list of names. For example:
terser ... -m reserved=['$','require','exports']
to prevent the require
, exports
and $
names from being changed.
Note: THIS WILL BREAK YOUR CODE. A good rule of thumb is not to use this unless you know exactly what you're doing and how this works and read this section until the end.
Mangling property names is a separate step, different from variable name mangling. Pass
--mangle-props
to enable it. The least dangerous
way to use this is to use the regex
option like so:
terser example.js -c -m --mangle-props regex=/_$/
This will mangle all properties that end with an underscore. So you can use it to mangle internal methods.
By default, it will mangle all properties in the input code with the exception of built in DOM properties and properties in core JavaScript classes, which is what will break your code if you don't:
- Control all the code you're mangling
- Avoid using a module bundler, as they usually will call Terser on each file individually, making it impossible to pass mangled objects between modules.
- Avoid calling functions like
defineProperty
orhasOwnProperty
, because they refer to object properties using strings and will break your code if you don't know what you are doing.
An example:
// example.js
var x = {
baz_: 0,
foo_: 1,
calc: function() {
return this.foo_ + this.baz_;
}
};
x.bar_ = 2;
x["baz_"] = 3;
console.log(x.calc());
Mangle all properties (except for JavaScript builtins
) (very unsafe):
$ terser example.js -c passes=2 -m --mangle-props
var x={o:3,t:1,i:function(){return this.t+this.o},s:2};console.log(x.i());
Mangle all properties except for reserved
properties (still very unsafe):
$ terser example.js -c passes=2 -m --mangle-props reserved=[foo_,bar_]
var x={o:3,foo_:1,t:function(){return this.foo_+this.o},bar_:2};console.log(x.t());
Mangle all properties matching a regex
(not as unsafe but still unsafe):
$ terser example.js -c passes=2 -m --mangle-props regex=/_$/
var x={o:3,t:1,calc:function(){return this.t+this.o},i:2};console.log(x.calc());
Combining mangle properties options:
$ terser example.js -c passes=2 -m --mangle-props regex=/_$/,reserved=[bar_]
var x={o:3,t:1,calc:function(){return this.t+this.o},bar_:2};console.log(x.calc());
In order for this to be of any use, we avoid mangling standard JS names and DOM
API properties by default (--mangle-props builtins
to override).
A regular expression can be used to define which property names should be
mangled. For example, --mangle-props regex=/^_/
will only mangle property
names that start with an underscore.
When you compress multiple files using this option, in order for them to
work together in the end we need to ensure somehow that one property gets
mangled to the same name in all of them. For this, pass --name-cache filename.json
and Terser will maintain these mappings in a file which can then be reused.
It should be initially empty. Example:
$ rm -f /tmp/cache.json # start fresh
$ terser file1.js file2.js --mangle-props --name-cache /tmp/cache.json -o part1.js
$ terser file3.js file4.js --mangle-props --name-cache /tmp/cache.json -o part2.js
Now, part1.js
and part2.js
will be consistent with each other in terms
of mangled property names.
Using the name cache is not necessary if you compress all your files in a single call to Terser.
Using quoted property name (o["foo"]
) reserves the property name (foo
)
so that it is not mangled throughout the entire script even when used in an
unquoted style (o.foo
). Example:
// stuff.js
var o = {
"foo": 1,
bar: 3
};
o.foo += o.bar;
console.log(o.foo);
$ terser stuff.js --mangle-props keep_quoted -c -m
var o={foo:1,o:3};o.foo+=o.o,console.log(o.foo);
You can also pass --mangle-props debug
in order to mangle property names
without completely obscuring them. For example the property o.foo
would mangle to o._$foo$_
with this option. This allows property mangling
of a large codebase while still being able to debug the code and identify
where mangling is breaking things.
$ terser stuff.js --mangle-props debug -c -m
var o={_$foo$_:1,_$bar$_:3};o._$foo$_+=o._$bar$_,console.log(o._$foo$_);
You can also pass a custom suffix using --mangle-props debug=XYZ
. This would then
mangle o.foo
to o._$foo$XYZ_
. You can change this each time you compile a
script to identify how a property got mangled. One technique is to pass a
random number on every compile to simulate mangling changing with different
inputs (e.g. as you update the input script with new properties), and to help
identify mistakes like writing mangled keys to storage.
Assuming installation via NPM, you can load Terser in your application like this:
const { minify } = require("terser");
Or,
import { minify } from "terser";
Browser loading is also supported:
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/source-map@0.7.3/dist/source-map.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/terser/dist/bundle.min.js"></script>
There is a single async high level function, async minify(code, options)
,
which will perform all minification phases in a configurable
manner. By default minify()
will enable compress
and mangle
. Example:
var code = "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }";
var result = await minify(code, { sourceMap: true });
console.log(result.code); // minified output: function add(n,d){return n+d}
console.log(result.map); // source map
You can minify
more than one JavaScript file at a time by using an object
for the first argument where the keys are file names and the values are source
code:
var code = {
"file1.js": "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }",
"file2.js": "console.log(add(1 + 2, 3 + 4));"
};
var result = await minify(code);
console.log(result.code);
// function add(d,n){return d+n}console.log(add(3,7));
The toplevel
option:
var code = {
"file1.js": "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }",
"file2.js": "console.log(add(1 + 2, 3 + 4));"
};
var options = { toplevel: true };
var result = await minify(code, options);
console.log(result.code);
// console.log(3+7);
The nameCache
option:
var options = {
mangle: {
toplevel: true,
},
nameCache: {}
};
var result1 = await minify({
"file1.js": "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }"
}, options);
var result2 = await minify({
"file2.js": "console.log(add(1 + 2, 3 + 4));"
}, options);
console.log(result1.code);
// function n(n,r){return n+r}
console.log(result2.code);
// console.log(n(3,7));
You may persist the name cache to the file system in the following way:
var cacheFileName = "/tmp/cache.json";
var options = {
mangle: {
properties: true,
},
nameCache: JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(cacheFileName, "utf8"))
};
fs.writeFileSync("part1.js", await minify({
"file1.js": fs.readFileSync("file1.js", "utf8"),
"file2.js": fs.readFileSync("file2.js", "utf8")
}, options).code, "utf8");
fs.writeFileSync("part2.js", await minify({
"file3.js": fs.readFileSync("file3.js", "utf8"),
"file4.js": fs.readFileSync("file4.js", "utf8")
}, options).code, "utf8");
fs.writeFileSync(cacheFileName, JSON.stringify(options.nameCache), "utf8");
An example of a combination of minify()
options:
var code = {
"file1.js": "function add(first, second) { return first + second; }",
"file2.js": "console.log(add(1 + 2, 3 + 4));"
};
var options = {
toplevel: true,
compress: {
global_defs: {
"@console.log": "alert"
},
passes: 2
},
format: {
preamble: "/* minified */"
}
};
var result = await minify(code, options);
console.log(result.code);
// /* minified */
// alert(10);"
An error example:
try {
const result = await minify({"foo.js" : "if (0) else console.log(1);"});
// Do something with result
} catch (error) {
const { message, filename, line, col, pos } = error;
// Do something with error
}
-
ecma
(defaultundefined
) - pass5
,2015
,2016
, etc to overridecompress
andformat
'secma
options. -
enclose
(defaultfalse
) - passtrue
, or a string in the format of"args[:values]"
, whereargs
andvalues
are comma-separated argument names and values, respectively, to embed the output in a big function with the configurable arguments and values. -
parse
(default{}
) — pass an object if you wish to specify some additional parse options. -
compress
(default{}
) — passfalse
to skip compressing entirely. Pass an object to specify custom compress options. -
mangle
(defaulttrue
) — passfalse
to skip mangling names, or pass an object to specify mangle options (see below).mangle.properties
(defaultfalse
) — a subcategory of the mangle option. Pass an object to specify custom mangle property options.
-
module
(defaultfalse
) — Use when minifying an ES6 module. "use strict" is implied and names can be mangled on the top scope. Ifcompress
ormangle
is enabled then thetoplevel
option will be enabled. -
format
oroutput
(defaultnull
) — pass an object if you wish to specify additional format options. The defaults are optimized for best compression. -
sourceMap
(defaultfalse
) - pass an object if you wish to specify source map options. -
toplevel
(defaultfalse
) - set totrue
if you wish to enable top level variable and function name mangling and to drop unused variables and functions. -
nameCache
(defaultnull
) - pass an empty object{}
or a previously usednameCache
object if you wish to cache mangled variable and property names across multiple invocations ofminify()
. Note: this is a read/write property.minify()
will read the name cache state of this object and update it during minification so that it may be reused or externally persisted by the user. -
ie8
(defaultfalse
) - set totrue
to support IE8. -
keep_classnames
(default:undefined
) - passtrue
to prevent discarding or mangling of class names. Pass a regular expression to only keep class names matching that regex. -
keep_fnames
(default:false
) - passtrue
to prevent discarding or mangling of function names. Pass a regular expression to only keep function names matching that regex. Useful for code relying onFunction.prototype.name
. If the top level minify optionkeep_classnames
isundefined
it will be overridden with the value of the top level minify optionkeep_fnames
. -
safari10
(default:false
) - passtrue
to work around Safari 10/11 bugs in loop scoping andawait
. Seesafari10
options inmangle
andformat
for details.
{
parse: {
// parse options
},
compress: {
// compress options
},
mangle: {
// mangle options
properties: {
// mangle property options
}
},
format: {
// format options (can also use `output` for backwards compatibility)
},
sourceMap: {
// source map options
},
ecma: 5, // specify one of: 5, 2015, 2016, etc.
enclose: false, // or specify true, or "args:values"
keep_classnames: false,
keep_fnames: false,
ie8: false,
module: false,
nameCache: null, // or specify a name cache object
safari10: false,
toplevel: false
}
To generate a source map:
var result = await minify({"file1.js": "var a = function() {};"}, {
sourceMap: {
filename: "out.js",
url: "out.js.map"
}
});
console.log(result.code); // minified output
console.log(result.map); // source map
Note that the source map is not saved in a file, it's just returned in
result.map
. The value passed for sourceMap.url
is only used to set
//# sourceMappingURL=out.js.map
in result.code
. The value of
filename
is only used to set file
attribute (see the spec)
in source map file.
You can set option sourceMap.url
to be "inline"
and source map will
be appended to code.
You can also specify sourceRoot property to be included in source map:
var result = await minify({"file1.js": "var a = function() {};"}, {
sourceMap: {
root: "http://example.com/src",
url: "out.js.map"
}
});
If you're compressing compiled JavaScript and have a source map for it, you
can use sourceMap.content
:
var result = await minify({"compiled.js": "compiled code"}, {
sourceMap: {
content: "content from compiled.js.map",
url: "minified.js.map"
}
});
// same as before, it returns `code` and `map`
If you're using the X-SourceMap
header instead, you can just omit sourceMap.url
.
If you happen to need the source map as a raw object, set sourceMap.asObject
to true
.
-
bare_returns
(defaultfalse
) -- support top levelreturn
statements -
html5_comments
(defaulttrue
) -
shebang
(defaulttrue
) -- support#!command
as the first line -
spidermonkey
(defaultfalse
) -- accept a Spidermonkey (Mozilla) AST
-
defaults
(default:true
) -- Passfalse
to disable most default enabledcompress
transforms. Useful when you only want to enable a fewcompress
options while disabling the rest. -
arrows
(default:true
) -- Class and object literal methods are converted will also be converted to arrow expressions if the resultant code is shorter:m(){return x}
becomesm:()=>x
. To do this to regular ES5 functions which don't usethis
orarguments
, seeunsafe_arrows
. -
arguments
(default:false
) -- replacearguments[index]
with function parameter name whenever possible. -
booleans
(default:true
) -- various optimizations for boolean context, for example!!a ? b : c → a ? b : c
-
booleans_as_integers
(default:false
) -- Turn booleans into 0 and 1, also makes comparisons with booleans use==
and!=
instead of===
and!==
. -
collapse_vars
(default:true
) -- Collapse single-use non-constant variables, side effects permitting. -
comparisons
(default:true
) -- apply certain optimizations to binary nodes, e.g.!(a <= b) → a > b
(only whenunsafe_comps
), attempts to negate binary nodes, e.g.a = !b && !c && !d && !e → a=!(b||c||d||e)
etc. Note:comparisons
works best withlhs_constants
enabled. -
computed_props
(default:true
) -- Transforms constant computed properties into regular ones:{["computed"]: 1}
is converted to{computed: 1}
. -
conditionals
(default:true
) -- apply optimizations forif
-s and conditional expressions -
dead_code
(default:true
) -- remove unreachable code -
directives
(default:true
) -- remove redundant or non-standard directives -
drop_console
(default:false
) -- Passtrue
to discard calls toconsole.*
functions. If you wish to drop a specific function call such asconsole.info
and/or retain side effects from function arguments after dropping the function call then usepure_funcs
instead. -
drop_debugger
(default:true
) -- removedebugger;
statements -
ecma
(default:5
) -- Pass2015
or greater to enablecompress
options that will transform ES5 code into smaller ES6+ equivalent forms. -
evaluate
(default:true
) -- attempt to evaluate constant expressions -
expression
(default:false
) -- Passtrue
to preserve completion values from terminal statements withoutreturn
, e.g. in bookmarklets. -
global_defs
(default:{}
) -- see conditional compilation -
hoist_funs
(default:false
) -- hoist function declarations -
hoist_props
(default:true
) -- hoist properties from constant object and array literals into regular variables subject to a set of constraints. For example:var o={p:1, q:2}; f(o.p, o.q);
is converted tof(1, 2);
. Note:hoist_props
works best withmangle
enabled, thecompress
optionpasses
set to2
or higher, and thecompress
optiontoplevel
enabled. -
hoist_vars
(default:false
) -- hoistvar
declarations (this isfalse
by default because it seems to increase the size of the output in general) -
if_return
(default:true
) -- optimizations for if/return and if/continue -
inline
(default:true
) -- inline calls to function with simple/return
statement:false
-- same as0
0
-- disabled inlining1
-- inline simple functions2
-- inline functions with arguments3
-- inline functions with arguments and variablestrue
-- same as3
-
join_vars
(default:true
) -- join consecutivevar
,let
andconst
statements -
keep_classnames
(default:false
) -- Passtrue
to prevent the compressor from discarding class names. Pass a regular expression to only keep class names matching that regex. See also: thekeep_classnames
mangle option. -
keep_fargs
(default:true
) -- Prevents the compressor from discarding unused function arguments. You need this for code which relies onFunction.length
. -
keep_fnames
(default:false
) -- Passtrue
to prevent the compressor from discarding function names. Pass a regular expression to only keep function names matching that regex. Useful for code relying onFunction.prototype.name
. See also: thekeep_fnames
mangle option. -
keep_infinity
(default:false
) -- Passtrue
to preventInfinity
from being compressed into1/0
, which may cause performance issues on Chrome. -
lhs_constants
(default:true
) -- Moves constant values to the left-hand side of binary nodes.foo == 42 → 42 == foo
-
loops
(default:true
) -- optimizations fordo
,while
andfor
loops when we can statically determine the condition. -
module
(defaultfalse
) -- Passtrue
when compressing an ES6 module. Strict mode is implied and thetoplevel
option as well. -
negate_iife
(default:true
) -- negate "Immediately-Called Function Expressions" where the return value is discarded, to avoid the parens that the code generator would insert. -
passes
(default:1
) -- The maximum number of times to run compress. In some cases more than one pass leads to further compressed code. Keep in mind more passes will take more time. -
properties
(default:true
) -- rewrite property access using the dot notation, for examplefoo["bar"] → foo.bar
-
pure_funcs
(default:null
) -- You can pass an array of names and Terser will assume that those functions do not produce side effects. DANGER: will not check if the name is redefined in scope. An example case here, for instancevar q = Math.floor(a/b)
. If variableq
is not used elsewhere, Terser will drop it, but will still keep theMath.floor(a/b)
, not knowing what it does. You can passpure_funcs: [ 'Math.floor' ]
to let it know that this function won't produce any side effect, in which case the whole statement would get discarded. The current implementation adds some overhead (compression will be slower). -
pure_getters
(default:"strict"
) -- If you passtrue
for this, Terser will assume that object property access (e.g.foo.bar
orfoo["bar"]
) doesn't have any side effects. Specify"strict"
to treatfoo.bar
as side-effect-free only whenfoo
is certain to not throw, i.e. notnull
orundefined
. -
reduce_vars
(default:true
) -- Improve optimization on variables assigned with and used as constant values. -
reduce_funcs
(default:true
) -- Inline single-use functions when possible. Depends onreduce_vars
being enabled. Disabling this option sometimes improves performance of the output code. -
sequences
(default:true
) -- join consecutive simple statements using the comma operator. May be set to a positive integer to specify the maximum number of consecutive comma sequences that will be generated. If this option is set totrue
then the defaultsequences
limit is200
. Set option tofalse
or0
to disable. The smallestsequences
length is2
. Asequences
value of1
is grandfathered to be equivalent totrue
and as such means200
. On rare occasions the default sequences limit leads to very slow compress times in which case a value of20
or less is recommended. -
side_effects
(default:true
) -- Remove expressions which have no side effects and whose results aren't used. -
switches
(default:true
) -- de-duplicate and remove unreachableswitch
branches -
toplevel
(default:false
) -- drop unreferenced functions ("funcs"
) and/or variables ("vars"
) in the top level scope (false
by default,true
to drop both unreferenced functions and variables) -
top_retain
(default:null
) -- prevent specific toplevel functions and variables fromunused
removal (can be array, comma-separated, RegExp or function. Impliestoplevel
) -
typeofs
(default:true
) -- Transformstypeof foo == "undefined"
intofoo === void 0
. Note: recommend to set this value tofalse
for IE10 and earlier versions due to known issues. -
unsafe
(default:false
) -- apply "unsafe" transformations (details). -
unsafe_arrows
(default:false
) -- Convert ES5 style anonymous function expressions to arrow functions if the function body does not referencethis
. Note: it is not always safe to perform this conversion if code relies on the the function having aprototype
, which arrow functions lack. This transform requires that theecma
compress option is set to2015
or greater. -
unsafe_comps
(default:false
) -- Reverse<
and<=
to>
and>=
to allow improved compression. This might be unsafe when an at least one of two operands is an object with computed values due the use of methods likeget
, orvalueOf
. This could cause change in execution order after operands in the comparison are switching. Compression only works if bothcomparisons
andunsafe_comps
are both set to true. -
unsafe_Function
(default:false
) -- compress and mangleFunction(args, code)
when bothargs
andcode
are string literals. -
unsafe_math
(default:false
) -- optimize numerical expressions like2 * x * 3
into6 * x
, which may give imprecise floating point results. -
unsafe_symbols
(default:false
) -- removes keys from native Symbol declarations, e.gSymbol("kDog")
becomesSymbol()
. -
unsafe_methods
(default: false) -- Converts{ m: function(){} }
to{ m(){} }
.ecma
must be set to6
or greater to enable this transform. Ifunsafe_methods
is a RegExp then key/value pairs with keys matching the RegExp will be converted to concise methods. Note: if enabled there is a risk of getting a "<method name>
is not a constructor" TypeError should any code try tonew
the former function. -
unsafe_proto
(default:false
) -- optimize expressions likeArray.prototype.slice.call(a)
into[].slice.call(a)
-
unsafe_regexp
(default:false
) -- enable substitutions of variables withRegExp
values the same way as if they are constants. -
unsafe_undefined
(default:false
) -- substitutevoid 0
if there is a variable namedundefined
in scope (variable name will be mangled, typically reduced to a single character) -
unused
(default:true
) -- drop unreferenced functions and variables (simple direct variable assignments do not count as references unless set to"keep_assign"
)
-
eval
(defaultfalse
) -- Passtrue
to mangle names visible in scopes whereeval
orwith
are used. -
keep_classnames
(defaultfalse
) -- Passtrue
to not mangle class names. Pass a regular expression to only keep class names matching that regex. See also: thekeep_classnames
compress option. -
keep_fnames
(defaultfalse
) -- Passtrue
to not mangle function names. Pass a regular expression to only keep function names matching that regex. Useful for code relying onFunction.prototype.name
. See also: thekeep_fnames
compress option. -
module
(defaultfalse
) -- Passtrue
an ES6 modules, where the toplevel scope is not the global scope. Impliestoplevel
. -
nth_identifier
(default: an internal mangler that weights based on character frequency analysis) -- Pass an object with aget(n)
function that converts an ordinal into the nth most favored (usually shortest) identifier. Optionally also providereset()
,sort()
, andconsider(chars, delta)
to use character frequency analysis of the source code. -
reserved
(default[]
) -- Pass an array of identifiers that should be excluded from mangling. Example:["foo", "bar"]
. -
toplevel
(defaultfalse
) -- Passtrue
to mangle names declared in the top level scope. -
safari10
(defaultfalse
) -- Passtrue
to work around the Safari 10 loop iterator bug "Cannot declare a let variable twice". See also: thesafari10
format option.
Examples:
// test.js
var globalVar;
function funcName(firstLongName, anotherLongName) {
var myVariable = firstLongName + anotherLongName;
}
var code = fs.readFileSync("test.js", "utf8");
await minify(code).code;
// 'function funcName(a,n){}var globalVar;'
await minify(code, { mangle: { reserved: ['firstLongName'] } }).code;
// 'function funcName(firstLongName,a){}var globalVar;'
await minify(code, { mangle: { toplevel: true } }).code;
// 'function n(n,a){}var a;'
-
builtins
(default:false
) — Usetrue
to allow the mangling of builtin DOM properties. Not recommended to override this setting. -
debug
(default:false
) — Mangle names with the original name still present. Pass an empty string""
to enable, or a non-empty string to set the debug suffix. -
keep_quoted
(default:false
) — How quoting properties ({"prop": ...}
andobj["prop"]
) controls what gets mangled."strict"
(recommended) --obj.prop
is mangled.false
--obj["prop"]
is mangled.true
--obj.prop
is mangled unless there isobj["prop"]
elsewhere in the code.
-
nth_identifer
(default: an internal mangler that weights based on character frequency analysis) -- Pass an object with aget(n)
function that converts an ordinal into the nth most favored (usually shortest) identifier. Optionally also providereset()
,sort()
, andconsider(chars, delta)
to use character frequency analysis of the source code. -
regex
(default:null
) — Pass a RegExp literal or pattern string to only mangle property matching the regular expression. -
reserved
(default:[]
) — Do not mangle property names listed in thereserved
array. -
undeclared
(default:false
) - Mangle those names when they are accessed as properties of known top level variables but their declarations are never found in input code. May be useful when only minifying parts of a project. See #397 for more details.
These options control the format of Terser's output code. Previously known as "output options".
-
ascii_only
(defaultfalse
) -- escape Unicode characters in strings and regexps (affects directives with non-ascii characters becoming invalid) -
beautify
(defaultfalse
) -- (DEPRECATED) whether to beautify the output. When using the legacy-b
CLI flag, this is set to true by default. -
braces
(defaultfalse
) -- always insert braces inif
,for
,do
,while
orwith
statements, even if their body is a single statement. -
comments
(default"some"
) -- by default it keeps JSDoc-style comments that contain "@license", "@copyright", "@preserve" or start with!
, passtrue
or"all"
to preserve all comments,false
to omit comments in the output, a regular expression string (e.g./^!/
) or a function. -
ecma
(default5
) -- set desired EcmaScript standard version for output. Setecma
to2015
or greater to emit shorthand object properties - i.e.:{a}
instead of{a: a}
. Theecma
option will only change the output in direct control of the beautifier. Non-compatible features in your input will still be output as is. For example: anecma
setting of5
will not convert modern code to ES5. -
indent_level
(default4
) -
indent_start
(default0
) -- prefix all lines by that many spaces -
inline_script
(defaulttrue
) -- escape HTML comments and the slash in occurrences of</script>
in strings -
keep_numbers
(defaultfalse
) -- keep number literals as it was in original code (disables optimizations like converting1000000
into1e6
) -
keep_quoted_props
(defaultfalse
) -- when turned on, prevents stripping quotes from property names in object literals. -
max_line_len
(defaultfalse
) -- maximum line length (for minified code) -
preamble
(defaultnull
) -- when passed it must be a string and it will be prepended to the output literally. The source map will adjust for this text. Can be used to insert a comment containing licensing information, for example. -
quote_keys
(defaultfalse
) -- passtrue
to quote all keys in literal objects -
quote_style
(default0
) -- preferred quote style for strings (affects quoted property names and directives as well):0
-- prefers double quotes, switches to single quotes when there are more double quotes in the string itself.0
is best for gzip size.1
-- always use single quotes2
-- always use double quotes3
-- always use the original quotes
-
preserve_annotations
-- (defaultfalse
) -- Preserve Terser annotations in the output. -
safari10
(defaultfalse
) -- set this option totrue
to work around the Safari 10/11 await bug. See also: thesafari10
mangle option. -
semicolons
(defaulttrue
) -- separate statements with semicolons. If you passfalse
then whenever possible we will use a newline instead of a semicolon, leading to more readable output of minified code (size before gzip could be smaller; size after gzip insignificantly larger). -
shebang
(defaulttrue
) -- preserve shebang#!
in preamble (bash scripts) -
spidermonkey
(defaultfalse
) -- produce a Spidermonkey (Mozilla) AST -
webkit
(defaultfalse
) -- enable workarounds for WebKit bugs. PhantomJS users should set this option totrue
. -
wrap_iife
(defaultfalse
) -- passtrue
to wrap immediately invoked function expressions. See #640 for more details. -
wrap_func_args
(defaulttrue
) -- passfalse
if you do not want to wrap function expressions that are passed as arguments, in parenthesis. See OptimizeJS for more details.
You can pass --comments
to retain certain comments in the output. By
default it will keep comments starting with "!" and JSDoc-style comments that
contain "@preserve", "@copyright", "@license" or "@cc_on" (conditional compilation for IE).
You can pass --comments all
to keep all the comments, or a valid JavaScript regexp to
keep only comments that match this regexp. For example --comments /^!/
will keep comments like /*! Copyright Notice */
.
Note, however, that there might be situations where comments are lost. For example:
function f() {
/** @preserve Foo Bar */
function g() {
// this function is never called
}
return something();
}
Even though it has "@preserve", the comment will be lost because the inner
function g
(which is the AST node to which the comment is attached to) is
discarded by the compressor as not referenced.
The safest comments where to place copyright information (or other info that needs to be kept in the output) are comments attached to toplevel nodes.
It enables some transformations that might break code logic in certain contrived cases, but should be fine for most code. It assumes that standard built-in ECMAScript functions and classes have not been altered or replaced. You might want to try it on your own code; it should reduce the minified size. Some examples of the optimizations made when this option is enabled:
new Array(1, 2, 3)
orArray(1, 2, 3)
→[ 1, 2, 3 ]
Array.from([1, 2, 3])
→[1, 2, 3]
new Object()
→{}
String(exp)
orexp.toString()
→"" + exp
new Object/RegExp/Function/Error/Array (...)
→ we discard thenew
"foo bar".substr(4)
→"bar"
You can use the --define
(-d
) switch in order to declare global
variables that Terser will assume to be constants (unless defined in
scope). For example if you pass --define DEBUG=false
then, coupled with
dead code removal Terser will discard the following from the output:
if (DEBUG) {
console.log("debug stuff");
}
You can specify nested constants in the form of --define env.DEBUG=false
.
Another way of doing that is to declare your globals as constants in a
separate file and include it into the build. For example you can have a
build/defines.js
file with the following:
var DEBUG = false;
var PRODUCTION = true;
// etc.
and build your code like this:
terser build/defines.js js/foo.js js/bar.js... -c
Terser will notice the constants and, since they cannot be altered, it
will evaluate references to them to the value itself and drop unreachable
code as usual. The build will contain the const
declarations if you use
them. If you are targeting < ES6 environments which does not support const
,
using var
with reduce_vars
(enabled by default) should suffice.
You can also use conditional compilation via the programmatic API. With the difference that the
property name is global_defs
and is a compressor property:
var result = await minify(fs.readFileSync("input.js", "utf8"), {
compress: {
dead_code: true,
global_defs: {
DEBUG: false
}
}
});
To replace an identifier with an arbitrary non-constant expression it is
necessary to prefix the global_defs
key with "@"
to instruct Terser
to parse the value as an expression:
await minify("alert('hello');", {
compress: {
global_defs: {
"@alert": "console.log"
}
}
}).code;
// returns: 'console.log("hello");'
Otherwise it would be replaced as string literal:
await minify("alert('hello');", {
compress: {
global_defs: {
"alert": "console.log"
}
}
}).code;
// returns: '"console.log"("hello");'
Annotations in Terser are a way to tell it to treat a certain function call differently. The following annotations are available:
/*@__INLINE__*/
- forces a function to be inlined somewhere./*@__NOINLINE__*/
- Makes sure the called function is not inlined into the call site./*@__PURE__*/
- Marks a function call as pure. That means, it can safely be dropped.
You can use either a @
sign at the start, or a #
.
Here are some examples on how to use them:
/*@__INLINE__*/
function_always_inlined_here()
/*#__NOINLINE__*/
function_cant_be_inlined_into_here()
const x = /*#__PURE__*/i_am_dropped_if_x_is_not_used()
Terser has its own abstract syntax tree format; for practical reasons we can't easily change to using the SpiderMonkey AST internally. However, Terser now has a converter which can import a SpiderMonkey AST.
For example Acorn is a super-fast parser that produces a SpiderMonkey AST. It has a small CLI utility that parses one file and dumps the AST in JSON on the standard output. To use Terser to mangle and compress that:
acorn file.js | terser -p spidermonkey -m -c
The -p spidermonkey
option tells Terser that all input files are not
JavaScript, but JS code described in SpiderMonkey AST in JSON. Therefore we
don't use our own parser in this case, but just transform that AST into our
internal AST.
spidermonkey
is also available in minify
as parse
and format
options to
accept and/or produce a spidermonkey AST.
More for fun, I added the -p acorn
option which will use Acorn to do all
the parsing. If you pass this option, Terser will require("acorn")
.
Acorn is really fast (e.g. 250ms instead of 380ms on some 650K code), but converting the SpiderMonkey tree that Acorn produces takes another 150ms so in total it's a bit more than just using Terser's own parser.
It's not well known, but whitespace removal and symbol mangling accounts
for 95% of the size reduction in minified code for most JavaScript - not
elaborate code transforms. One can simply disable compress
to speed up
Terser builds by 3 to 4 times.
d3.js | size | gzip size | time (s) |
---|---|---|---|
original | 451,131 | 108,733 | - |
terser@3.7.5 mangle=false, compress=false | 316,600 | 85,245 | 0.82 |
terser@3.7.5 mangle=true, compress=false | 220,216 | 72,730 | 1.45 |
terser@3.7.5 mangle=true, compress=true | 212,046 | 70,954 | 5.87 |
babili@0.1.4 | 210,713 | 72,140 | 12.64 |
babel-minify@0.4.3 | 210,321 | 72,242 | 48.67 |
babel-minify@0.5.0-alpha.01eac1c3 | 210,421 | 72,238 | 14.17 |
To enable fast minify mode from the CLI use:
terser file.js -m
To enable fast minify mode with the API use:
await minify(code, { compress: false, mangle: true });
Various compress
transforms that simplify, rearrange, inline and remove code
are known to have an adverse effect on debugging with source maps. This is
expected as code is optimized and mappings are often simply not possible as
some code no longer exists. For highest fidelity in source map debugging
disable the compress
option and just use mangle
.
To allow for better optimizations, the compiler makes various assumptions:
.toString()
and.valueOf()
don't have side effects, and for built-in objects they have not been overridden.undefined
,NaN
andInfinity
have not been externally redefined.arguments.callee
,arguments.caller
andFunction.prototype.caller
are not used.- The code doesn't expect the contents of
Function.prototype.toString()
orError.prototype.stack
to be anything in particular. - Getting and setting properties on a plain object does not cause other side effects
(using
.watch()
orProxy
). - Object properties can be added, removed and modified (not prevented with
Object.defineProperty()
,Object.defineProperties()
,Object.freeze()
,Object.preventExtensions()
orObject.seal()
). document.all
is not== null
- Assigning properties to a class doesn't have side effects and does not throw.
https://www.npmjs.com/browse/depended/terser
A number of JS bundlers and uglify wrappers are still using buggy versions
of uglify-es
and have not yet upgraded to terser
. If you are using yarn
you can add the following alias to your project's package.json
file:
"resolutions": {
"uglify-es": "npm:terser"
}
to use terser
instead of uglify-es
in all deeply nested dependencies
without changing any code.
Note: for this change to take effect you must run the following commands
to remove the existing yarn
lock file and reinstall all packages:
$ rm -rf node_modules yarn.lock
$ yarn
In the terser CLI we use source-map-support to produce good error stacks. In your own app, you're expected to enable source-map-support (read their docs) to have nice stack traces that will help you write good issues.
Because users often don't control the call to await minify()
or its arguments, Terser provides a TERSER_DEBUG_DIR
environment variable to make terser output some debug logs. If you're using a bundler or a project that includes a bundler and are not sure what went wrong with your code, pass that variable like so:
$ TERSER_DEBUG_DIR=/path/to/logs command-that-uses-terser
$ ls /path/to/logs
terser-debug-123456.log
If you're not sure how to set an environment variable on your shell (the above example works in bash), you can try using cross-env:
> npx cross-env TERSER_DEBUG_DIR=/path/to/logs command-that-uses-terser
note: You can support this project on patreon: [link] The Terser Patreon is shutting down in favor of opencollective. Check out PATRONS.md for our first-tier patrons.
These are the second-tier patrons. Great thanks for your support!
This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute. [Contribute].
Become a financial contributor and help us sustain our community. [Contribute]
Support this project with your organization. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. [Contribute]