deno bundle minification

[ghost]

Similar to how Deno uses a TypeScript compiler when running code, users should have the option when bundling to minify their compiled files for better performance. The argument after bundle could be -m or -minify. We could see if the minifier would be uglify, which from what I've heard is normally used with npm.

Any thoughts?

[kitsonk]

This would be a long term goal.

We couldn't use uglify as it doesn't work with modern JavaScript, uglify-es is no longer maintained, terser is the successor to uglify. Even then we wouldn't use it. We would look to swc though its minification likely needs improvement.

[ghost]

Well, I suppose that this would be the tool to be used! It seems more fitting upon inspection, anyhow. I believe as long as its minification process does not come with a critical error that would ruin the code itself, it can grow alongside Deno, couldn't it?

[kitsonk]

We already use swc in Deno. Again this is still a long term goal, as there are a load of other things we need to do (including ones related to bundling, see: #4549) before this became a priority, some of which would block this (source maps for example).

[kitsonk]

This potentially could be considered now that we have moved over bundling to swc.

[kitsonk]

minification is on the swc roadmap but not implemented yet

[ebebbington]

Would be great to see minification for deno bundle! I use deno bundle for my client side TS code, so it'd be great to minify it as well

[pierredewilde]

In the meantime, you may use esbuild, an extremely fast JavaScript minifier written in Go, to minify your Deno bundles:

$ deno bundle https://deno.land/[email protected]/http/file_server.ts | esbuild --minify > file_server.min.js
$ deno run --allow-net --allow-read file_server.min.js

Other JavaScript minifiers (eg terser) may have issues like Unexpected character '#' - See terser/terser#702

[ghost]

Sounds like a shortcut or alias can be made from that! @pierredewilde

[IllusionPerdu]

For information they're some work in swc for minify swc-project/swc#1302

[kitsonk]

Please keep the information on topic. If you want to discuss esbuild under Deno, we have a discussion forum.

[kurai-espoir]

Any update on this?

[josh-hemphill]

If deno uses swc, and swc allows for config files to set things like minification, Is it possible to just expose that for configuring the compile command. (might also be a good idea to include that in the new deno.json config file like there is for tsconfig)
https://swc.rs/docs/configuration/minification

[kitsonk]

Not really, as the way Deno interfaces with swc is not via a configuration file, but instead by directly interfacing to the Rust APIs, and the configuration is quite opinionated.

That being said, it could be something that the wider community could contribute by adding a --minify flag to deno bundle and deno compile and would require familiarity with the Rust API of swc. We would want to ensure that the source maps are right and proper for deno bundle.

[KnorpelSenf]

If this gets implemented, would you also add a minify?: boolean option to Deno.emit?

[kamilogorek]

In #16149 @kitsonk explained why it's not going to happen.
I'd close this issue in favor of #15463

[lucacasonato]

deno bundle was removed in Deno 2.