Removing extra whitespace from generated HTML in M

Question

I have an MVC application view that is generating quite a large HTML table of values (>20MB).

I am compressing the view in the controller using a compression filter

 internal class CompressFilter : ActionFilterAttribute
 {
     public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
     {
         HttpRequestBase request = filterContext.HttpContext.Request;
         string acceptEncoding = request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"];
         if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(acceptEncoding))
             return;
         acceptEncoding = acceptEncoding.ToUpperInvariant();
         HttpResponseBase response = filterContext.HttpContext.Response;
         if (acceptEncoding.Contains("GZIP"))
         {
             response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "gzip");
             response.Filter = new GZipStream(response.Filter, CompressionMode.Compress);
         }
         else if (acceptEncoding.Contains("DEFLATE"))
         {
             response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "deflate");
             response.Filter = new DeflateStream(response.Filter, CompressionMode.Compress);
         }
     }
 }

Is there a way to also eliminate the (quite large) amount of redundant whitespace generated in the view before I run the compress filter (to reduce compression workload and size)?

EDIT: I got it working using the WhiteSpaceFilter technique suggested by Womp below.

For interest here's the results, as analysed by Firebug:

1) No Compression, no whitespace strip - 21MB, 2.59 minutes
2) With GZIP compression, no whitespace strip - 2MB, 17.59s
3) With GZIP compression, whitespace strip - 558kB, 12.77s

So certainly worth it.

Answer 1

One can remove whitespace at compile time by extending Razor. That eliminates the (very significant by my measurements) runtime hit of removing white space from the generated HTML. The hit is as large as 88ms on a high end i7 trimming a 100KB document using RegEx-based code found on Stack Overflow.

The following provides an implementation of a compile-time solution for MVC 3 and MVC 4:

Meleze.Web

The solution is described at

http://cestdumeleze.net/blog/2011/minifying-the-html-with-asp-net-mvc-and-razor/

(but use the GitHub code or NuGet DLL, as the code in the blog post covers only MVC 3).

Answer 2

Here is a VB.NET version of a whitespace filter attribute I am using in a project:

#Region "Imports"

    Imports System.IO

#End Region

Namespace MyCompany.Web.Mvc.Extensions.ActionFilters

    ''' <summary>
    ''' WhitespaceFilter attribute
    ''' </summary>
    Public NotInheritable Class WhitespaceFilterAttribute
        Inherits ActionFilterAttribute

        ''' <summary>
        ''' Called when action executing.   
        ''' </summary>
        ''' <param name="filterContext">The filter context.</param>
        ''' <remarks></remarks>
        Public Overrides Sub OnActionExecuting(filterContext As ActionExecutingContext)

                filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Filter = New WhitespaceFilterStream(filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Filter)

        End Sub

    #Region "Whitespace stream filter"

            ''' <summary>
            ''' Whitespace stream filter
            ''' </summary>
            Private Class WhitespaceFilterStream
                Inherits Stream

    #Region "Declarations"

                ' Member vars.
                Private Shared regexPattern As New Regex("(?<=[^])\t{2,}|(?<=[>])\s{2,}(?=[<])|(?<=[>])\s{2,11}(?=[<])|(?=[\n])\s{2,}")
                ' Property vars.
                Private sinkStreamValue As Stream
                Private positionValue As Long

    #End Region

    #Region "Constructor(s)"

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Contructor to create a new object.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <param name="sink"></param>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Sub New(sink As Stream)

                    Me.sinkStreamValue = sink

                End Sub

    #End Region

    #Region "Properites"

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Gets the CanRead value.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <value></value>
                ''' <returns></returns>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides ReadOnly Property CanRead() As Boolean
                    Get
                        Return True
                    End Get
                End Property

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Gets the CanSeek value.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <value></value>
                ''' <returns></returns>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides ReadOnly Property CanSeek() As Boolean
                    Get
                        Return True
                    End Get
                End Property

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Gets the CanWrite value.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <value></value>
                ''' <returns></returns>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides ReadOnly Property CanWrite() As Boolean
                    Get
                        Return True
                    End Get
                End Property

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Get Length value.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <value></value>
                ''' <returns></returns>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides ReadOnly Property Length() As Long
                    Get
                        Return 0
                    End Get
                End Property

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Get or sets Position value.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <value></value>
                ''' <returns></returns>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides Property Position() As Long
                    Get
                        Return Me.positionValue
                    End Get
                    Set(value As Long)
                        Me.positionValue = value
                    End Set
                End Property

    #End Region

    #Region "Stream Overrides Methods"

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Stream object Close method.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides Sub Close()

                    Me.sinkStreamValue.Close()

                End Sub

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Stream object Close method.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides Sub Flush()

                    Me.sinkStreamValue.Flush()

                End Sub

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Stream object Read method.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <param name="buffer"></param>
                ''' <param name="offset"></param>
                ''' <param name="count"></param>
                ''' <returns></returns>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides Function Read(buffer As Byte(), offset As Integer, count As Integer) As Integer

                    Return Me.sinkStreamValue.Read(buffer, offset, count)

                End Function

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Stream object Seek method.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <param name="offset"></param>
                ''' <param name="origin"></param>
                ''' <returns></returns>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides Function Seek(offset As Long, origin As SeekOrigin) As Long

                    Return Me.sinkStreamValue.Seek(offset, origin)

                End Function

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Stream object SetLength method.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <param name="value"></param>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides Sub SetLength(value As Long)

                    Me.sinkStreamValue.SetLength(value)

                End Sub

                ''' <summary>
                ''' Stream object Write method.
                ''' </summary>
                ''' <param name="bufferBytes"></param>
                ''' <param name="offset"></param>
                ''' <param name="count"></param>
                ''' <remarks></remarks>
                Public Overrides Sub Write(bufferBytes As Byte(), offset As Integer, count As Integer)

                    Dim html As String = Encoding.Default.GetString(bufferBytes)

                    Buffer.BlockCopy(bufferBytes, offset, New Byte(count - 1) {}, 0, count)
                    html = regexPattern.Replace(html, String.Empty)
                    Me.sinkStreamValue.Write(Encoding.Default.GetBytes(html), 0, Encoding.Default.GetBytes(html).GetLength(0))

                End Sub

    #End Region

            End Class

    #End Region

        End Class

    End Namespace

And in Global.asax.vb:

Shared Sub RegisterGlobalFilters(ByVal filters As GlobalFilterCollection)

    With filters
        ' Standard MVC filters
        .Add(New HandleErrorAttribute())
        ' MyCompany MVC filters
        .Add(New CompressionFilterAttribute)
        .Add(New WhitespaceFilterAttribute)
    End With

End Sub

Answer 3

I would say that if your View is generating over 20mb of data, you may want to investigate different ways to display the data, perhaps paging?

Answer 4

Whitespace compresses pretty well, I don't think removing it is going to save you much.

I would suggest trying to offload some of the HTML to the client if possible, use JavaScript to reconstitute things that repeat.

Answer 5

If you are returning JSON from the View, it is already minified and should not contain any whitespace or CR/LF. You should use paging to keep from sending so much data to the browser at once.

Answer 6

@womp has already suggested a good way of doing it but that module is pretty outdated. I have been using that but it turns out that it is not an optimal way. Here is the question I asked about:

Remove white space from entire Html but inside pre with regular expressions

Here is how I do it:

public class RemoveWhitespacesAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute {

    public override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext) {

        var response = filterContext.HttpContext.Response;

        //Temp fix. I am not sure what causes this but ContentType is coming as text/html
        if (filterContext.HttpContext.Request.RawUrl != "/sitemap.xml") {

            if (response.ContentType == "text/html" && response.Filter != null) {
                response.Filter = new HelperClass(response.Filter);
            }
        }
    }

    private class HelperClass : Stream {

        private System.IO.Stream Base;

        public HelperClass(System.IO.Stream ResponseStream) {

            if (ResponseStream == null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("ResponseStream");
            this.Base = ResponseStream;
        }

        StringBuilder s = new StringBuilder();

        public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) {

            string HTML = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buffer, offset, count);

            //Thanks to Qtax
            //https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8762993/remove-white-space-from-entire-html-but-inside-pre-with-regular-expressions
            Regex reg = new Regex(@"(?<=\s)\s+(?![^<>]*</pre>)");
            HTML = reg.Replace(HTML, string.Empty);

            buffer = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(HTML);
            this.Base.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
        }

        #region Other Members

        public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) {

            throw new NotSupportedException();
        }

        public override bool CanRead{ get { return false; } }

        public override bool CanSeek{ get { return false; } }

        public override bool CanWrite{ get { return true; } }

        public override long Length{ get { throw new NotSupportedException(); } }

        public override long Position {

            get { throw new NotSupportedException(); }
            set { throw new NotSupportedException(); }
        }

        public override void Flush() {

            Base.Flush();
        }

        public override long Seek(long offset, SeekOrigin origin) {

            throw new NotSupportedException();
        }

        public override void SetLength(long value) {

            throw new NotSupportedException();
        }

        #endregion
    }

}