grunt-cache-bust

Bust static assets from the cache using content hashing

Getting Started

If you haven't used grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide.

From the same directory as your project's Gruntfile and package.json, install this plugin with the following command:

npm install grunt-cache-bust --save-dev

Once that's done, add this line to your project's Gruntfile:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-cache-bust');

If the plugin has been installed correctly, running grunt --help at the command line should list the newly-installed plugin's task or tasks. In addition, the plugin should be listed in package.json as a devDependency, which ensures that it will be installed whenever the npm install command is run.

The "cacheBust" task

Use the cacheBust task for cache busting static files in your application. This allows them to be cached forever by the browser, justp oint the task towards any file that contains references to static assets.

Currently supported static assets: CSS, JavaScript, images and favicons

Note: Remote URLs for CSS, JavaScript, and images are ignored by cacheBust. This assumes that remote URLs for these assets will be CDN hosted content, typically for well known libraries like jQuery or Bootstrap. These URLs typically include a version identifier in the URL to deal with browser caching, and it is in the best interest of your app to use the standard URL as-is to ensure browser cache hits for popular libraries. For example, all of below URLs will be ignored:

<link href="//netdna.bootstrapcdn.com/twitter-bootstrap/2.3.2/css/bootstrap-combined.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
<link href="http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/assets/css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.0.6/angular.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/qunit/qunit-1.12.0.js"></script>
<img src="https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d3b2094f1b3386e660bb737e797f5dcc?s=420" alt="test" />

Overview

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named cacheBust to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  cacheBust: {
    options: {
      encoding: 'utf8',
      algorithm: 'md5',
      length: 16
    },
    assets: {
        files: [{
            src: ['index.html']
        }]
    }
  },
})

Options

options.encoding

Type: String Default value: 'utf8'

The encoding of the file contents.

options.algorithm

Type: String Default value: 'md5'

algorithm is dependent on the available algorithms supported by the version of OpenSSL on the platform. Examples are 'sha1', 'md5', 'sha256', 'sha512'

options.length

Type: Number Default value: 16

The number of characters of the file content hash to prefix the file name with.

options.rename

Type: Boolean Default value: false

When true, cachbust will rename the reference to the file and the file itself with the generated hash. When set to false, then a query string parameter is added to the end of the file reference.

options.dir

Type: String Default value: false

When set, cachbust will try to find the asset files using the dir as base path.

Usage Examples

Basic Asset Cache Busting

grunt.initConfig({
  cacheBust: {
    files: {
      src: ['index.html', 'contact.html']
    }
  }
})

Custom Options

grunt.initConfig({
  cacheBust: {
    options: {
      algorithm: 'sha1',
      length: 32,
      baseDir : '.tmp/public/'
    },
    files: [{
      expand: true,
      cwd: 'src',
      src: ['*.html'],
      dest: 'dest/'
    }]
  }
})