GLSL Preprocessor, Minifier, and Webpack Loader

webpack-glsl-minify is a loader for Webpack that handles GLSL files. In addition to simply loading the GLSL program into a JavaScript string, it also has a preprocessor which executes at compile time, and a minifier which shrinks the GLSL program before embedding it in JavaScript.

Install

npm install --save-dev webpack-glsl-minify

Usage

Webpack Configuration

To use, add the following to your webpack.js config file:

module: {
  rules: [
    {
      test: /\.glsl$/,
      use: 'webpack-glsl-minify'
    }
  ]
},
resolve: {
  extensions: [ '.glsl' ]
}

GLSL Preprocessor

The preprocessor uses an @ symbol to distinguish commands executed at Webpack compile time versus shader compile time. The following commands are supported:

include Directive

Includes another GLSL file. Example:

@include "../path/another-file.glsl"

define Directive

Defines a macro which will be substituted elsewhere in the code. Example:

@define PI 3.1415
// ....
float angle = 2.0 * PI;

Note that @define is not a replacement for #define. For minification purposes, it is often better to let the shader compiler do the macro substitution instead of the Webpack compiler.

nomangle Directive

Disables name mangling on one or more symbols. Example:

@nomangle symbol1 symbol2

const Directive

Defines a constant variable with a unique substitution value that can be used to search-and-replace to initialize the constant. Example:

@const int my_int

will produce

const int A=$0$;

and the mapping from my_int to the substitution value $0$ will be returned in the output.

Minification

The following minification optimizations are performed:

Removal of comments and whitespace. Both C-style /* Comment */ and C++-style // Comment are supported.
Shortening floating point numbers. 1.0 becomes 1.
Mangling symbol names. All functions, variables, parameters, and uniforms are renamed to short names. Built-in GLSL functions and variables begining with gl_ are automatically excluded. Attributes and varying variables are also excluded, as the names must be consistent across multiple shaders. Additional symbols may be excluded with the @nomangle directive.

Output

By default, an object is exported via JavaScript containing the source code and a map of the mangled uniforms and constants:

module.exports = {
  sourceCode: "uniform vec3 A;uniform float B;/* ... More minified GLSL code here */",
  uniforms: { // Map of minified uniform variables
    uniform1: {             // Unminified uniform name
      variableName: "A",    // Minified uniform name
      variableType: "vec3"  // Type of the uniform
    },
    uniform2: {
      variableName: "B",
      variableType: "float"
    } // ...
  },
  consts: { // Map of minified const variables
    const1: {               // Unminified const name
      variableName: "$0$",  // Substitution value to replace to initialize the const
      variableType: "vec2"  // Type of the const
    } // ...
  }
};

The map of uniforms is included to make it easy for the JavaScript code compiling and executing the WebGL shader to set the uniform values, even after minification.

TypeScript type definitions are included in the webpack-glsl-minify package for the output object. Simply cast to a GlslShader object when including GLSL code:

import { GlslShader, GlslVariable, GlslVariableMap } from 'webpack-glsl-minify';

let shader = require('./myshader.glsl') as GlslShader;

Loader Options

module: {
  rules: [
    {
      test: /\.glsl$/,
      use: {
        loader: 'webpack-glsl-minify',
        options: {
          output: 'object',
          esModule: false,
          stripVersion: false,
          preserveDefines: false,
          preserveUniforms: false,
          preserveVariables: false,
          disableMangle: false,
          nomangle: [ 'variable1', 'variable2' ],
          includesOnly: false,
        }
      }
    }
  ]
},
resolve: {
  extensions: [ '.glsl' ]
}

This loader also supports the following loader-specific options:

output: Default 'object', which outputs JavaScript code which exports an object described in the section above. Alternatively, 'source' may be specified which exports only a string containing the source code instead. Selecting 'source' automatically disables mangling of uniforms as there is no output map of the mangled names.
esModule: Default false. Uses ES modules syntax instead of CommonJS. Applies to the "object" and "source" output formats.
stripVersion: Default false. Strips any #version directives.
preserveDefines: Default false. Disables name mangling of #defines.
preserveUniforms: Default false. Disables name mangling of uniforms.
preserveVariables: Default false. Disables name mangling of variables.
preserveAll: Default false. Disables all mangling.
disableMangle: Default false. Disables name mangling. This is useful for development purpose.
nomangle: Specifies an array of additional variable names or keywords to explicitly disable name mangling.
includesOnly: Default false. Disables all processing except include files. Useful for development!

Using Without Webpack

Additionally, webpack-glsl-minify provides a command-line tool which can be used as a build step without Webpack. By default, it produces .js files for each of the input .glsl files specified, output in the same directory as the source .glsl. Alternatively, the -outDir parameter may be used to produce output in a separate output directory mirroring the input directory layout.

$ npx webpack-glsl-minify --help
webpack-glsl-minify <files..> [options]

Minifies one or more GLSL files. Input files may be specified in glob syntax.

Options:
  --version            Show version number                             [boolean]
  --ext, -e            Extension for output files      [string] [default: ".js"]
  --outDir, -o         Output base directory. By default, files are output to
                       the same directory as the input .glsl file.      [string]
  --output             Output format
                 [choices: "object", "source", "sourceOnly"] [default: "object"]
  --esModule           Uses ES modules syntax. Applies to the "object" and
                       "source" output formats.                        [boolean]
  --stripVersion       Strips any #version directives                  [boolean]
  --preserveDefines    Disables name mangling of #defines              [boolean]
  --preserveUniforms   Disables name mangling of uniforms              [boolean]
  --preserveVariables  Disables name mangling of variables             [boolean]
  --preserveAll        Disables all mangling                           [boolean]
  --nomangle           Disables name mangling for a set of keywords      [array]
  --includesOnly       Only process include files                      [boolean]
  --help               Show help                                       [boolean]

Compiling From Source

The source code is written in TypeScript. The build script supports two commands:

npm run build - Compiles the output to build/
npm run test - Runs unit tests

tim-we/webpack-glsl-minify