Part of the Internet applications glossary:

Code minification is the removal of unnecessary characters from source code. Mini, when used as a prefix, means small.  The goal of minification is to make source code "smaller" and improve performance. 

Next Steps

The term minification is often associated with interpreted scripted languages, such as JavaScript, that are deployed and transmitted over the Internet. Code that has been minified by replacing runs of spaces by a single space, for example, is more lightweight and takes less time for a browser to load. Popular minification tools for Web development include YUI Compressor, Google Closure Compiler, UglifyJS and JSMin.

Conceptually, minification is similar to compression.  Unlike code that has been compressed, however, code that has minified can still be worked with without requiring the extra step of decompression. 

In some areas of programming, minification is also known as de-obfuscation. 

This was last updated in June 2012
Contributor(s): Christine Guarrera
Posted by: Margaret Rouse

Related Terms

Definitions

  • cloudware

    - Cloudware is software that runs on a remote Web server rather than on a mobile computing device, personal computer (PC) or traditional on-premises application server. (SearchCloudStorage.com)

  • Google Trends

    - Google Trends is a free service provided by Google that displays how often specific keywords, subjects and phrases have been searched for on Google over a period of time. (WhatIs.com)

  • application sandboxing

    - Application sandboxing, also called application containerization, is an approach to software development and mobile application management (MAM) that limits the environments in which certain code c... (SearchConsumerization.com)

Glossaries

  • Internet applications

    - This WhatIs.com glossary contains terms related to Internet applications, including definitions about Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery models and words and phrases about web sites, e-commerce ...

  • Programming

    - Terms related to software programming, including definitions about programming languages and words and phrases about software design, coding, testing and debugging.

Ask a Question About minifyPowered by ITKnowledgeExchange.com

Get answers from your peers on your most technical challenges

Tech TalkComment

Share
Comments

    Results

    Contribute to the conversation

    All fields are required. Comments will appear at the bottom of the article.
    Back to top