Command line interface

From a command prompt, you can invoke the PhpMinifier executable by using the npx command:

$ npx @cedx/php-minifier --help

Minify PHP source code by removing comments and whitespace.

Usage:
  npx @cedx/php-minifier [options] <input> [output]

Arguments:
  input            The path to the input directory.
  output           The path to the output directory.

Options:
  -b, --binary     The path to the PHP executable. Defaults to "php".
  -e, --extension  The extension of the PHP files to process. Defaults to "php".
  -m, --mode       The operation mode of the minifier. Defaults to "safe".
  -r, --recursive  Whether to process the input directory recursively.
  -s, --silent     Whether to silence the minifier output.
  -h, --help       Display this help.
  -v, --version    Output the version number.

For example:

npx @cedx/php-minifier path/to/source/folder path/to/destination/folder
# Minifying: MyClass1.php
# Minifying: subfolder/MyClass2.php
# ...

Options

--binary

The minifier relies on the availability of the PHP executable on the target system. By default, the minifier will use the php binary found on the system path.
If the minifier cannot find the default php binary, or if you want to use a different one, you can provide the path to the php executable by using the binary option:

npx @cedx/php-minifier "--binary=C:\Program Files\PHP\php.exe" path/to/source/folder

--extension

By default, the minifier will process all files with the .php extension. If your PHP scripts use a different file extension, you can specify another extension to process by using the extension option:

npx @cedx/php-minifier --extension=php8 path/to/source/folder

--mode

The minifier can work in two manners, which can be selected using the mode option:

• the safe mode: as its name implies, this mode is very reliable. But it is also very slow as it spawns a new PHP process for every file to be processed. This is the default mode.
• the fast mode: as its name implies, this mode is very fast, but it is not always reliable. It spawns a PHP web server that processes the input files, but on some systems this fails.

npx @cedx/php-minifier --mode=fast path/to/source/folder

Tip

The command line defaults to the safe mode, but you should really give a try to the fast one.
The difference is very noticeable.

--recursive

By default, the minifier will only process files located at the root of the input folder. To also process all subfolders and files recursively, set the recursive option:

npx @cedx/php-minifier --recursive path/to/source/folder

--silent

By default, the minifier prints to the standard output the paths of the minified scripts. You can disable this output by setting the silent option:

npx @cedx/php-minifier --silent path/to/source/folder