Avoiding stale CSS and JS files

Yii 1.1 Tips, Snippets and Tutorials
1

Problem:

When I modify the static css or js file under webroot/css or webroot/js and then release a new version of my web-application, browsers do not detect the change, so users see a broken page (because of stale css or js).

Solution

I implement a custom version of AssetManager and put it in the components/AssetManager.php:


<?php


class AssetManager extends CAssetManager {


	protected function hash($path)

	{

		return sprintf('%x',crc32($path.'-'.Yii::getVersion().'-'.Yii::app()->params['version']));

	}


}

?>

Then I add the following in the main configuration file:




    // application components

    'components' => array(

        'assetManager' => array(

            'class' => 'AssetManager',

        ),

    ),

    // application-level parameters that can be accessed

    // using Yii::app()->params['paramName']

    'params' => array(

        // this is used in contact page

        'version' => '1.0',

    ),

Now when I release a new version of the App I can change the Yii::app()->params[‘version’] and all of the assets will be republished under different paths.

Question

May be there is a better way to solve this issue? How do you solve it?

2

I’m using publish for each file separately. This way Yii detects changes and re-publishes it.

3

there is also another solution - you can use modified CClientScript which attach version to every CSS/JS URL as a get param. When you change version - browsers will fetch the file again.

I did an extension providing this functionality: http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/csclientscript/

4

Hi, redguy!

Thanks for sharing your solution.

I think this issue is so common, that it would worth mentioning somewhere on the wiki or in documentation.

5

Even if Yii republishes the file, the URL wouldn’t change and browsers would still use the cached version of the CSS/JS file.