What is the role of src and dist folders?

javascript jquery jquery-plugins gruntjs
Don P picture Don P · May 19, 2014 · Viewed 76.2k times · Source

I'm looking at a git repo for a jquery plugin. I want to make a few changes for use in my own project, but when I opened up the repo it had a structure I've never seen before. I'm not sure which files to use / copy into my own project.

There is a "dist" and a "src" folder. What purpose do these serve? Is this something specific for gruntjs or maybe jquery plugins?

The git repo I'm curious about: https://github.com/ducksboard/gridster.js

Answer

dmullings picture dmullings · May 19, 2014

src/ stands for source, and is the raw code before minification or concatenation or some other compilation - used to read/edit the code.

dist/ stands for distribution, and is the minified/concatenated version - actually used on production sites.

This is a common task that is done for assets on the web to make them smaller.

You can see an example here: http://blog.kevinchisholm.com/javascript/node-js/javascript-concatenation-and-minification-with-the-grunt-js-task-runer/

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