Why/how does WP obfuscate the js include files? Needing to debug/reverse them.

A sample of swfupload-all.js:

// swfupload
var SWFUpload;if(SWFUpload==undefined){SWFUpload=function(a){this.initSWFUpload(a)}}SWFUpload.prototype.initSWFUpload=function(b){try{this.customSettings={};this.settings=b;this.eventQueue=[];this.movieName="SWFUpload_"+SWFUpload.movieCount++;this.movieElement=null;SWFUpload.instances[this.movieName]=this;this.initSettings();this.loadFlash()}catch(a){delete SWFUpload.instances[this.movieName];throw a}};SWFUpload.instances={};SWFUpload.movieCount=0;SWFUpload.version="2.2.0 2009-03-25";SWFUpload.QUEUE_ERROR={QUEUE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED:-100,

This is all of the swfupload files packed into one, which is loaded by load-script/s.php. The rest of the file goes on like that… no line breaks.

^Yes, obfuscated. You can see easily how the two files differ.

The second (http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/branches/3.2/wp-includes/js/swfupload/swfupload-all.js) is used by WP. So if you want to debug in a browser you are stuck with that. It is a conglomeration of more than just swfupload, therefore you cannot simple replace the files.

This obfuscation I think is a bad practice. But I would just like a solution. Like how the files are obfuscated, so that they can be disobfuscated at the very least.

PS: Seeing as browsers download a javascript file and then cache it, WP is not saving anyone much bandwidth at all by obfuscating the source code. It is just making the files opaque / impossible / troublesome to debug or adapt.

If a blog serving bajillions of readers needs to make the files smaller for every ounce of savings per each of its readers, that should be a plugin.

EDITED: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/obfuscate

@jackson

That’s what I was looking for. It would be nice if the streamlining was a turn on feature. A good compromise would be to put a comment in the top of the compressed files I think. Still that would not be helpful to non-administrators trying to replicate what their favorite site is up to.

I noticed in load-scripts you can pass ?c=1 to disable compression for some reason. If there was an analog for undoing the script mangling that would be very handy.

@mickeyroush

Minify is a tech word I’ve never stumbled across before. Regardless, minified code is a subset of obfuscated code.

PS: I don’t think this is a good practice for WP. Bare minimum define(‘SCRIPT_DEBUG’,true); needs to appear in wp-config.php so administrators can be aware of it from day one. It should be uncommented with a comment that says, comment this out to minify js files or whatever. Or an option could alternatively be in the settings pages.

EDITED: @claytonjames

I appreciate the effort if you uploaded that code yourself. I think we ultimately found a better solution. But just to be clear, the -all file includes more than the swfupload.js file alone. I’m sorry, I can’t tell off the top of my head if everything is in there. It’s not clearly labeled -all though.