Back
Apr 3, 2011

Sprite cache invalidation

When we use css-sprites it's important to make browser cache them for longest period possible. On other hand, we need to refresh them when they are updated. This is especially visible when all icons are stored in single sprite. When it's outdated - entire site becomes ugly.

To solve this task I've implemented this small script that adds file's hash to url:

background-image: url(images/icons.png);
background-image: url(images/icons.png?a3844c660);
#!/usr/bin/python

import os.path
import re
import hashlib


def file_hash(filename, block_size=2**20):
    md5 = hashlib.md5()
    with open(filename, 'rb') as f:
        for data in iter(lambda: f.read(block_size), ''):
            md5.update(data)
    return md5.hexdigest()


def find_replace(match, basedir):
    match = match.replace("'", '')
    if '?' in match or '#' in match or match.startswith('http://'):
        print 'skipping: ', match
        return None

    filename = os.path.join(basedir, match)
    return '%s?%s' % (match, file_hash(filename)[:10])


def insert_hash(filename, debug=False):
    basedir = os.path.dirname(filename)
    css = open(filename).read()
    matches = re.findall(r"url\((.*?)\)", css)
    replacements = dict([
        (match, find_replace(match, basedir))
        for match in matches
    ])

    if debug:
        for key, value in replacements.iteritems():
            print key, '    =>    ', value
    else:
        for match, repl in replacements.iteritems():
            if repl:
                css = css.replace(match, repl)

        out = open(filename, 'w')
        out.write(css)
        out.close()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    from optparse import OptionParser
    usage = 'usage: %prog filename.css'

    parser = OptionParser(usage=usage)
    parser.add_option("", "--debug", action="store_true", dest="debug", default=False,
                      help="When set, just output list of substitutions.")

    (options, args) = parser.parse_args()

    if len(args) < 1:
        print 'You must provide file name.'

    insert_hash(os.path.realpath(args[0]), options.debug)

Update

This is pretty old article. Now it's better to use something integrated to your build process - grunt, webassets, etc.

Subscribe for the news and updates

More thoughts
Dec 22, 2024Technology
Python and the Point Rush in DeFi

This article demonstrates how to use Python to automate yield calculations in decentralized finance (DeFi), focusing on the Renzo and Pendle platforms. It guides readers through estimating potential rewards based on factors like token prices, liquidity, and reward distribution rules, emphasizing the importance of regular data updates and informed decision-making in DeFi investments.

May 5, 2023Technology
The best CSS trends for 2023

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) made its debut in 1996 and continue to be an indispensable and evolving component of web development. We will examine the most valuable recent and upcoming characteristics in CSS for this year.

May 18, 2017Technology
Angular2: Development Tips and Trick

In this article we'll discuss some tricks you can use with Angular to make routing cleaner and improve SEO of your application.

Oct 3, 2016Technology
How to include JQuery plugins in Angular 2 running via webpack

Learn more about how to include jquery plugins in angular 2 running via webpack. Our tutorial is perfect for Angular beginners.

Aug 8, 2016TechnologyBusiness
How To Add HTML5 Geolocation To Your Web App?

In this article I will describe how to integrate geolocation HTML5 function to a web app so you can then easily implement it in your apps or websites. As an example we are going to create small web app which will be able to calculate the shortest route between detected user’s location and predefined destination using Google Maps API.

Sep 23, 2010Technology
Dynamic class generation, QuerySetManager and use_for_related_fields

It appears that not everyone knows that in python you can create classes dynamically without metaclasses. I'll show an example of how to do it.So we've learned how to use custom QuerySet to chain requests:Article.objects.old().public()Now we need to make it work for related objects:user.articles.old().public()This is done using use_for_related_fields, but it needs a little trick.