gulp-useref

Parse build blocks in HTML files to replace references to non-optimized scripts or stylesheets with useref

Inspired by the grunt plugin grunt-useref. It can handle file concatenation but not minification. Files are then passed down the stream. For minification of assets or other modifications, use gulp-if to conditionally handle specific types of assets.

Install

Install with npm

npm install --save-dev gulp-useref

Usage

The following example will parse the build blocks in the HTML, replace them and pass those files through. Assets inside the build blocks will be concatenated and passed through in a stream as well.

var gulp = require('gulp'),
    useref = require('gulp-useref');

gulp.task('default', function () {
    var assets = useref.assets();
    
	return gulp.src('app/*.html')
        .pipe(assets)
        .pipe(assets.restore())
        .pipe(useref())
        .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
});

If you want to minify your assets or perform some other modification, you can use gulp-if to conditionally handle specific types of assets.

var gulp = require('gulp'),
    useref = require('gulp-useref'),
    gulpif = require('gulp-if'),
    uglify = require('gulp-uglify'),
    minifyCss = require('gulp-minify-css');

gulp.task('html', function () {
    var assets = useref.assets();
    
    return gulp.src('app/*.html')
        .pipe(assets)
        .pipe(gulpif('*.js', uglify()))
        .pipe(gulpif('*.css', minifyCss()))
        .pipe(assets.restore())
        .pipe(useref())
        .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
});

Blocks are expressed as:

<!-- build:<type>(alternate search path) <path> -->
... HTML Markup, list of script / link tags.
<!-- endbuild -->

type: either js, css or remove; remove will remove the build block entirely without generating a file
alternate search path: (optional) By default the input files are relative to the treated file. Alternate search path allows one to change that
path: the file path of the optimized file, the target output

An example of this in completed form can be seen below:

<html>
<head>
    <!-- build:css css/combined.css -->
    <link href="css/one.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link href="css/two.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <!-- endbuild -->
</head>
<body>
    <!-- build:js scripts/combined.js -->
    <script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/one.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/two.js"></script>
    <!-- endbuild -->
</body>
</html>

The resulting HTML would be:

<html>
<head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/combined.css"/>
</head>
<body>
    <script src="scripts/combined.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

API

useref.assets(options)

Returns a stream with the concatenated asset files from the build blocks inside the HTML.

options.searchPath

Type: String or Array
Default: none

Specify the location to search for asset files, relative to the current working directory. Can be a string or array of strings.

options.noconcat

Type: Boolean
Default: false

Skip concatenation and add all assets to the stream instead.

stream.restore()

Brings back the previously filtered out HTML files.

Notes

ClosureCompiler.js doesn't support Buffers, which means if you want to use gulp-closure-compiler you'll have to first write out the combined.js to disk. See this for more information.

SpeCT/gulp-useref