Caching & Compressing Static Content in ASP.NET MVC - asp.net-mvc

Question

I am using Google Page Speed in Firefox to optimize my site seed. It's an ASP.NET MVC site that I'm running using the Visual Studio dev server. I have static content located in the /Content folder (images, scripts, styles). Google Page Speed suggests that I implement caching b/c no expiration is specified for my static content. I included the following in web.config but it doesn't seem to help:
<system.webServer>
<staticContent>
<clientCache cacheControlMaxAge="7.00:00:00" cacheControlMode="UseMaxAge"/>
</staticContent>
</system.webServer>
For that matter, I also want to enable compression of these files. Would love to know how to do both. Thanks.

Answer 1

For compression, I use the following custom CompressAttribute class so that you only have to decorate controller methods with [Compress] when you want to enable compression for it:
public class CompressAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
/// <summary>
/// Enables compression on page response
/// </summary>
/// <param name="filterContext">Filter context</param>
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("DEFLATE"))
{
response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "deflate");
response.Filter = new WebCompressionStream(response.Filter, CompressionType.Deflate);
}
else if (acceptEncoding.Contains("GZIP"))
{
response.AppendHeader("Content-encoding", "gzip");
response.Filter = new WebCompressionStream(response.Filter, CompressionType.GZip);
}
}
}
The WebCompressionStream class looks like this:
public sealed class WebCompressionStream : Stream
{
private readonly Stream _compSink;
private readonly Stream _finalSink;
/// <summary>
/// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="WebCompressionStream"/> class.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="stm">The stream</param>
/// <param name="comp">The compression type to use</param>
public WebCompressionStream(Stream stm, CompressionType comp)
{
switch (comp)
{
case CompressionType.Deflate:
_compSink = new DeflateStream((_finalSink = stm), CompressionMode.Compress);
break;
case CompressionType.GZip:
_compSink = new GZipStream((_finalSink = stm), CompressionMode.Compress);
break;
default:
throw new ArgumentException();
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Gets the sink.
/// </summary>
/// <value>The sink.</value>
public Stream Sink
{
get
{
return _finalSink;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Gets the type of the compression.
/// </summary>
/// <value>The type of the compression.</value>
public CompressionType CompressionType
{
get
{
return _compSink is DeflateStream ? CompressionType.Deflate : CompressionType.GZip;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current stream supports reading.
/// </summary>
/// <value></value>
/// <returns>true if the stream supports reading; otherwise, false.</returns>
public override bool CanRead
{
get
{
return false;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current stream supports seeking.
/// </summary>
/// <value></value>
/// <returns>true if the stream supports seeking; otherwise, false.</returns>
public override bool CanSeek
{
get
{
return false;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current stream supports writing.
/// </summary>
/// <value></value>
/// <returns>true if the stream supports writing; otherwise, false.</returns>
public override bool CanWrite
{
get
{
return true;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, gets the length in bytes of the stream.
/// </summary>
/// <value></value>
/// <returns>A long value representing the length of the stream in bytes.</returns>
/// <exception cref="T:System.NotSupportedException">A class derived from Stream does not support seeking. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ObjectDisposedException">Methods were called after the stream was closed. </exception>
public override long Length
{
get
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, gets or sets the position within the current stream.
/// </summary>
/// <value></value>
/// <returns>The current position within the stream.</returns>
/// <exception cref="T:System.IO.IOException">An I/O error occurs. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.NotSupportedException">The stream does not support seeking. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ObjectDisposedException">Methods were called after the stream was closed. </exception>
public override long Position
{
get
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
set
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, clears all buffers for this stream and causes any buffered data to be written to the underlying device.
/// </summary>
/// <exception cref="T:System.IO.IOException">An I/O error occurs. </exception>
public override void Flush()
{
//We do not flush the compression stream. At best this does nothing, at worst it
//loses a few bytes. We do however flush the underlying stream to send bytes down the
//wire.
_finalSink.Flush();
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, sets the position within the current stream.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="offset">A byte offset relative to the <paramref name="origin"/> parameter.</param>
/// <param name="origin">A value of type <see cref="T:System.IO.SeekOrigin"/> indicating the reference point used to obtain the new position.</param>
/// <returns>
/// The new position within the current stream.
/// </returns>
/// <exception cref="T:System.IO.IOException">An I/O error occurs. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.NotSupportedException">The stream does not support seeking, such as if the stream is constructed from a pipe or console output. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ObjectDisposedException">Methods were called after the stream was closed. </exception>
public override long Seek(long offset, SeekOrigin origin)
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, sets the length of the current stream.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="value">The desired length of the current stream in bytes.</param>
/// <exception cref="T:System.IO.IOException">An I/O error occurs. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.NotSupportedException">The stream does not support both writing and seeking, such as if the stream is constructed from a pipe or console output. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ObjectDisposedException">Methods were called after the stream was closed. </exception>
public override void SetLength(long value)
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, reads a sequence of bytes from the current stream and advances the position within the stream by the number of bytes read.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="buffer">An array of bytes. When this method returns, the buffer contains the specified byte array with the values between <paramref name="offset"/> and (<paramref name="offset"/> + <paramref name="count"/> - 1) replaced by the bytes read from the current source.</param>
/// <param name="offset">The zero-based byte offset in <paramref name="buffer"/> at which to begin storing the data read from the current stream.</param>
/// <param name="count">The maximum number of bytes to be read from the current stream.</param>
/// <returns>
/// The total number of bytes read into the buffer. This can be less than the number of bytes requested if that many bytes are not currently available, or zero (0) if the end of the stream has been reached.
/// </returns>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ArgumentException">The sum of <paramref name="offset"/> and <paramref name="count"/> is larger than the buffer length. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ArgumentNullException">
/// <paramref name="buffer"/> is null. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException">
/// <paramref name="offset"/> or <paramref name="count"/> is negative. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.IO.IOException">An I/O error occurs. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.NotSupportedException">The stream does not support reading. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ObjectDisposedException">Methods were called after the stream was closed. </exception>
public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
/// <summary>
/// When overridden in a derived class, writes a sequence of bytes to the current stream and advances the current position within this stream by the number of bytes written.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="buffer">An array of bytes. This method copies <paramref name="count"/> bytes from <paramref name="buffer"/> to the current stream.</param>
/// <param name="offset">The zero-based byte offset in <paramref name="buffer"/> at which to begin copying bytes to the current stream.</param>
/// <param name="count">The number of bytes to be written to the current stream.</param>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ArgumentException">The sum of <paramref name="offset"/> and <paramref name="count"/> is greater than the buffer length. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ArgumentNullException">
/// <paramref name="buffer"/> is null. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException">
/// <paramref name="offset"/> or <paramref name="count"/> is negative. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.IO.IOException">An I/O error occurs. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.NotSupportedException">The stream does not support writing. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ObjectDisposedException">Methods were called after the stream was closed. </exception>
public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
{
_compSink.Write(buffer, offset, count);
}
/// <summary>
/// Writes a byte to the current position in the stream and advances the position within the stream by one byte.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="value">The byte to write to the stream.</param>
/// <exception cref="T:System.IO.IOException">An I/O error occurs. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.NotSupportedException">The stream does not support writing, or the stream is already closed. </exception>
/// <exception cref="T:System.ObjectDisposedException">Methods were called after the stream was closed. </exception>
public override void WriteByte(byte value)
{
_compSink.WriteByte(value);
}
/// <summary>
/// Closes the current stream and releases any resources (such as sockets and file handles) associated with the current stream.
/// </summary>
public override void Close()
{
_compSink.Close();
_finalSink.Close();
base.Close();
}
/// <summary>
/// Releases the unmanaged resources used by the <see cref="T:System.IO.Stream"/> and optionally releases the managed resources.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="disposing">true to release both managed and unmanaged resources; false to release only unmanaged resources.</param>
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (disposing)
{
_compSink.Dispose();
_finalSink.Dispose();
}
base.Dispose(disposing);
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Specifies the compression type to be used
/// </summary>
public enum CompressionType
{
/// <summary>
/// Compression will use deflate
/// </summary>
Deflate,
/// <summary>
/// Compression will use GZip
/// </summary>
GZip
}
USAGE:
[Compress]
public ActionResult SomeView()
{
return View("SomeView");
}

Answer 2

Compression is best to be set directly on IIS if you can. Otherwise, using custom attributes for action result compression is widely spread practice.
For javascript, css and resource files you can use tools like Ajax Minifier (it can be also set as build task).
For packaging all javascript or css files together you could create a controller action that combines them and than just call it in your view:
Also, when using common javascript libraries, such as jQuery, consider using any of CDN providers.