CSS/JS/Asset Compression in CakePHP

This code was developed for CakePHP 1.2 and will no longer work on the most recent versions. You should be using an asset handler plugin in 1.3+.

The other day I spent way too many hours trying to figure out CakePHPs built in CSS and JS compression system. To say the least, its not really built in, you have to configure and do a lot of it yourself. I did much searching and found tutorials that didn't work, or using custom built helpers that were of no use, and in the end I wrote my own script (based off webroot/css.php written by gwoo). My script does the following:

  • Compresses both CSS and JS, using one file
  • Caches the assets, and recaches if a change is made to the original
  • Comes prebuilt with CSS compression
  • Must download and install JSMin
  • Extremely easy to install and configure

To use my asset compression script, create a file called assets.php within webroot, and then copy and paste the code found at the end of this post. Once you have done this, download and place the jsmin.php file within /vendors/ or /app/vendors/ (the JSMin file should be named jsmin.php to work). The next step is to create a folder called assets within your /app/tmp/cache/ directory, and chmod the permissions to 777. The final step is to uncomment the filtering in core.php and set the path to assets.php.

Configure::write('Asset.filter.css', 'assets.php');
Configure::write('Asset.filter.js', 'assets.php');

Now to take it for a test spin! Once you have uncommented the configuration, direct your browser to the actual JS and CSS paths to see if it works (http://www.domain.com/ccss/style.css), and that's it! Hope this has been helpful and easy, like it should have been!

<?php 
// No cake installation
if (!defined('CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH')) { 
	header('HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found');
	exit('File Not Found'); 
} 
// Get asset type
$ext = trim(strrchr($url, '.'), '.');
$assetType = ($ext === 'css') ? 'css' : 'js';
// Wrong file
if (preg_match('|\.\.|', $url) || !preg_match('|^c'. $assetType .'/(.+)$|i', $url, $regs)) {
	die('Wrong File Name');
}
$cachePath = CACHE .'assets'. DS . str_replace(array('/','\\'), '-', $regs[1]);
$fileName = $assetType .'/'. $regs[1];
if ($assetType == 'css') {
	$filePath = CSS . $regs[1];
	$fileType = 'text/css';
} else {
	$filePath = JS . $regs[1];
	$fileType = 'text/javascript';
}
if (!file_exists($filePath)) {
	die('Asset Not Found');
}
/**
 * Compress the asset
 * @param string $path
 * @param string $name
 * @return string
 */
public function compress($path, $name, $type) {
	$input = file_get_contents($path);
	if ($type == 'css') {
		$stylesheet = preg_replace('!/\*[^*]*\*+([^/][^*]*\*+)*/!', '', $input);
		$stylesheet = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n", "\t", '/\s\s+/', '  ', '   '), '', $stylesheet);
		$stylesheet = str_replace(array(' {', '{ '), '{', $stylesheet);
		$stylesheet = str_replace(array(' }', '} '), '}', $stylesheet);
		$output = $stylesheet;
	} else {
		App::import('Vendor', 'jsmin');
		$output = JSMin::minify($input);
	}
	$ratio = 100 - (round(strlen($output) / strlen($input), 3) * 100);
	$output = "/* File: $name, Ratio: $ratio% */\n". $output;
	return $output;
}	
/**
 * Cache the asset
 * @param string $path
 * @param string $content
 * @return string
 */
public function cacheAsset($path, $content) {
	if (!is_dir(dirname($path))) {
		mkdir(dirname($path));
		chmod($path, 0777);
	}
	if (!class_exists('File')) {
		uses('file');
	}
	$cached = new File($path);
	return $cached->write($content);
}
// Do compression and cacheing
if (file_exists($cachePath)) {
	$templateModified = filemtime($filePath);
	$cachedModified = filemtime($cachePath);
	if ($templateModified > $cachedModified) {
		$output = compress($filePath, $fileName, $assetType);
		cacheAsset($cachePath, $output);
	} else {
		$output = file_get_contents($cachePath);
	}
} else {
	$output = compress($filePath, $fileName, $assetType);
	cacheAsset($cachePath, $output);
	$templateModified = time();
}
header("Date: ". date("D, j M Y G:i:s", $templateModified) ." GMT");
header("Content-Type: ". $fileType);
header("Expires: ". gmdate("D, j M Y H:i:s", time() + DAY) ." GMT");
header("Cache-Control: max-age=86400, must-revalidate"); // HTTP/1.1
header("Pragma: cache_asset");        // HTTP/1.0
echo $output; ?>