Python script for minifying CSS?

Question

I'm looking for a simple Python script that can minify CSS as part of a web-site deployment process. (Python is the only scripting language supported on the server and full-blown parsers like CSS Utils are overkill for this project).

Basically I'd like jsmin.py for CSS. A single script with no dependencies.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

This seemed like a good task for me to get into python, which has been pending for a while. I hereby present my first ever python script:

import sys, re

with open( sys.argv[1] , 'r' ) as f:
    css = f.read()

# remove comments - this will break a lot of hacks :-P
css = re.sub( r'\s*/\*\s*\*/', "$$HACK1$$", css ) # preserve IE<6 comment hack
css = re.sub( r'/\*[\s\S]*?\*/', "", css )
css = css.replace( "$$HACK1$$", '/**/' ) # preserve IE<6 comment hack

# url() doesn't need quotes
css = re.sub( r'url\((["\'])([^)]*)\1\)', r'url(\2)', css )

# spaces may be safely collapsed as generated content will collapse them anyway
css = re.sub( r'\s+', ' ', css )

# shorten collapsable colors: #aabbcc to #abc
css = re.sub( r'#([0-9a-f])\1([0-9a-f])\2([0-9a-f])\3(\s|;)', r'#\1\2\3\4', css )

# fragment values can loose zeros
css = re.sub( r':\s*0(\.\d+([cm]m|e[mx]|in|p[ctx]))\s*;', r':\1;', css )

for rule in re.findall( r'([^{]+){([^}]*)}', css ):

    # we don't need spaces around operators
    selectors = [re.sub( r'(?<=[\[\(>+=])\s+|\s+(?=[=~^$*|>+\]\)])', r'', selector.strip() ) for selector in rule[0].split( ',' )]

    # order is important, but we still want to discard repetitions
    properties = {}
    porder = []
    for prop in re.findall( '(.*?):(.*?)(;|$)', rule[1] ):
        key = prop[0].strip().lower()
        if key not in porder: porder.append( key )
        properties[ key ] = prop[1].strip()

    # output rule if it contains any declarations
    if properties:
        print "%s{%s}" % ( ','.join( selectors ), ''.join(['%s:%s;' % (key, properties[key]) for key in porder])[:-1] ) 

I believe this to work, and output it tests fine on recent Safari, Opera, and Firefox. It will break CSS hacks other than the underscore & /**/ hacks! Do not use a minifier if you have a lot of hacks going on (or put them in a separate file).

Any tips on my python appreciated. Please be gentle though, it's my first time. :-)