bin-minify

Add non-standard binaries to your projects.

Stable Release

You are reading the documentation for the stable release of bin-minify, 0.1.1. Please see CHANGELOG and make sure to read UPGRADING when upgrading from a previous version.

Overview

This module reduces the size of binaries by removing hard/soft links and duplicate files, in a step called staging. Once the binaries are staged they are packed (e.g. npm module, AWS Lambda) and deployed. At run-time links are created to rebuild the file system structure before the binaries are used.

This is specially important when needing to zip your files, as hard/soft links are not preserved (but replicated) by zipping them.

Other Uses

While bin-minify was originally created to address use cases involving binaries, its current implementation allows it to be used to solve other use cases (e.g. photo management).

Please open an issue with suggestions on how to use bin-minify to address additional use cases.

Install

$ npm install --save bin-minify

Usage

Streamlined Staging

It is typically preferred to use the streamlined staging in conjunction with gulp or grunt.

The following gulp task will analyze all binaries under ./bin/my-bin, save the resulting minPack to ./.bin-minify/my-bin.json, and remove any redundant binaries from ./bin/my-bin.

const gulp = require('gulp');
const file = require('gulp-file');
const path = require('path');
const stagingWorkflow = require('bin-minify').stagingWorkflow;
 
gulp.task('default', async (done) => {
  stagingWorkflow(path.resolve(__dirname, path.join('bin', 'my-bin'))).then(minPack => {
    file('my-bin.json', JSON.stringify(minPack, null, ' '), {src: true})
      .pipe(gulp.dest('.bin-minify'));
    done();
  }, error => {
    console.error(`Could not create minPack: ${error}`);
    done();
  });
});

Staging

Before using bin-minify the binaries (e.g. from a tar file or a build from source (maybe from bin-build) should be placed in the desired destination (typically vendor or bin folders).

With the binaries in place, they now should be analyzed, creating their minimal link representation (a.k.a. minPack) for future use (at run-time).

const path = require('path');
const StagingBin = require('bin-minify').StagingBin;
const BIN_PATH = path.resolve(__dirname, path.join('bin', 'bin-minify'));
 
var stagingBin = new StagingBin({
    targetPath: BIN_PATH,
});
 
stagingBin.createMinPack().then(result => {
  // result should be persisted in a source controlled file for future use
}, error => {
  // something went wrong
});

Before removing the "extra baggage" from the binaries analyzed, it is recommended to check that the link representation provided correctly rebuilds the original file system structure of the binaries.

const RuntimeBin = require('bin-minify').RuntimeBin;
 
const fromBase = path.join('/', 'tmp', 'bin-minify');
 
var runtimeBin = new RuntimeBin({
  targetPath: BIN_PATH,
  minPack: require('MY_MIN_PACK_FILE'),
  useSymlinks: true,
});
 
runtimeBin.applyMinPack(fromBase).then(result => {
  // link structure was created or fromBase already exists will "diff" both
  stagingBin.checkMinPack(fromBase).then(result => {
    if (result.length > 0) // folders are different, check the original binaries for empty folders
    else // folders match, it is safe to clean up the original binaries
  }, error => {
    // checkMinPack() failed
  });
}, error => {
  // applyMinPack() failed
});

Once all looks good (folders match) it is time to remove all unnecessary files from the original binary folder.

const sendToTrash = false;
stagingBin.minifyBin(sendToTrash).then(result => {
  // redundant files were removed from the original binary folder
}, error => {
  // minifyBin() failed
});

Note: If you plan to create a npm package, avoid packaging undesired files (e.g. tar/zip files) by using files section in your package.json.

The sample files section below assumes your links representation is stored in the .bin-minify folder and you binaries and in the bin folder.

"files": [
  "/.bin-minify",
  "/bin",
  "other source code locations"
],

Run-time

Use the link representation generated during staging to rebuild the file system structure before invoking the binaries.

const RuntimeBin = require('bin-minify').RuntimeBin;
 
const fromBase = path.join('/', 'tmp', 'bin-minify');
 
var runtimeBin = new RuntimeBin({
  targetPath: BIN_PATH,
  minPack: require('MY_MIN_PACK_FILE'),
  useSymlinks: true,
});
 
runtimeBin.applyMinPack(fromBase).then(result => {
  // link structure is ready or fromBase already exists
  // Time to configure PATH and any other environment variables
}, error => {
  // applyMinPack() failed
});

Consider using lambda-bin for a smaller module footprint and environment variable helper functions.

API

StagingBin

constructor (options)

Object new StagingBin( Object )

options

• Type: Object
• Optional

The following are supported keys in the options JSON object. Any other keys are ignored.

targetPath

• Type: string
• Default: ./bin/bin-minify

Location of the actual binaries.

Note: Typically the binaries under targetPath are source controlled (and should be included in the npm module or Lambda package).

relativeSymlinks

• Type: boolean
• Default: true

If true, the symlinks found will be interpreted as relative to their current location.

If false the symlinks found will be interpreted as absolute paths.

minPack

• Type: Object
• Default: {}

Used to load a previously created minPack.

Note: minPack is particularly useful for integrating the various staging steps into your workflow (e.g. using gulp or grunt) and for internal bin-minify testing.

Promise stagingBin.createMinPack ()

Analyzes all files under stagingBin.targetPath to create their minPack.

returns Promise

Resolved Promise: minPack JSON.

Note: It is recommended to store this minPack JSON to a source controlled file for future use.

Rejected Promise: { error }.

Promise stagingBin.checkMinPack (linksPath)

linksPath

• Type: string
• Default: /tmp/bin-minify

Compares the files under linksPath to the ones under stagingBin.targetPath.

Note: To check if the minPack is correct, the files under linksPath should be created by invoking runtimeBin.applyMinPack(linksPath) before stagingBin.checkMinPack().

returns Promise

Resolved Promise: Array compliant with the fs-tree-diff.calculatePatch() format.

Rejected Promise: { error }.

Promise stagingBin.minifyBin (sendToTrash)

sendToTrash

• Type: boolean
• Default: false

If true, all redundant files under stagingBin.targetPath will be removed by sending them to the trash.

If false, all redundant files under stagingBin.targetPath will be permanently removed.

returns Promise

Resolved Promise: Object as follows:

{
  "delCount": "number of files removed",
  "files": [
    [
      "full path of file removed",
      "full path of file removed",
    ],
    []
  ]
}

Rejected Promise: { error }.

RuntimeBin

constructor (options)

Object new RuntimeBin( Object )

options

• Type: Object
• Optional

The following are supported keys in the options JSON object. Any other keys are ignored.

targetPath

• Type: string
• Default: ./bin/bin-minify

Location of the actual binaries.

Note: Typically the binaries under targetPath are source controlled (and should be included in the npm module or Lambda package).

useSymlinks

• Type: boolean
• Default: true

If true, invoking runtimeBin.applyMinPack() will create symlinks (a.k.a. soft links).

If false, invoking runtimeBin.applyMinPack() will create hard links.

minPack

• Type: Object
• Default: {}

Used to load a previously created minPack.

Promise runtimeBin.applyMinPack (fromBase)

fromBase

• Type: string
• Required

Base path where the original file structure of the binaries will be recreated.

returns Promise

Resolved Promise: { loaded: true or false }. loaded will be:

• true if the file structure was successfully created.
• false if the fromBase path already existed.

Rejected Promise: { error }.

Promise stagingWorkflow (targetPath, minifyBinOptions)

targetPath

• Type: string
• Default: ./bin/bin-minify

Location of the actual binaries.

Note: Typically the binaries under targetPath are source controlled (and should be included in the npm module or Lambda package).

minifyBinOptions

• Type: Object
• Optional

The following are supported keys in the minifyBinOptions JSON object. Any other keys are ignored.

dryRun

• Type: boolean
• Default: false

If true, will not remove redundant files under targetPath.

If false, redundant files under targetPath will be handled according to minifyBinOptions.sendToTrash.

strict

• Type: boolean
• Default: false

If true, will only remove redundant files under targetPath if no difference exists between original and reconstructed binaries.

If false, will only remove redundant files under targetPath if only difference between original and reconstructed binaries are empty folders.

sendToTrash

• Type: boolean
• Default: false

If true, all redundant files under targetPath will be removed by sending them to the trash.

If false, all redundant files under targetPath will be permanently removed.

returns Promise

Resolved Promise: minPack JSON.

Note: It is recommended to store this minPack JSON to a source controlled file for future use.

Rejected Promise: { error }.

Performance

The run-time code has been tuned to speed up its operation.

Check out this sample (uses serverless & artillery) if you are interested in checking the bin-minify & lambda-bin performance impact to your code.

License

MIT © BotBits^SM