Minification is the process of removing unnecessary characters from code without changing its functionality. This typically includes removing whitespace, comments, and other non-essential elements to reduce file size and improve load times.
Minification is commonly applied to web development assets such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. By minifying these files, developers can reduce their size, leading to faster downloads and improved website performance. Minification is often done as part of the build process before deploying a website or web application.
Example (JavaScript Minification):
// Original JavaScript code
function add(a, b) {
return a + b;
}
// Minified JavaScript code
function add(a,b){return a+b;}
In this example, the original JavaScript code defines a function add with a space between the parameters a and b. After minification, the code is compressed, removing the space and reducing the file size.