Awesome

hxobfuscator

Shortens names for smaller output in Haxe/JavaScript builds. This library is build as helper for JavaScript minification tools (not included).

Introduction

Smaller field names means smaller output.

This tool tries to generate smaller/unreadable field names to help minifiers. Google Closure Compiler / UglifyJS aren't aware of Haxe generated code, they don't take in account what is exposed or not, we can help there. Lot of fields/functions that is not exposed probably can be obfuscated. For example, private fields are probably fine for obfuscation, because in general you never use reflection on private fields, unless you decorate it with @:keep. Public fields may also be obfuscated, but is slightly trickier because they can be typed using interfaces/typedefs, and may be part of a class that is exposed using @:expose or maybe is extern field. This tool tries to reduce, by decorating @:native on fields/functions.

Installation

The project isn't on haxelib yet, for now you can use:

haxelib git hxobfuscator https://github.com/markknol/hxobfuscator.git

Usage

Usage in haxe builds:

-lib hxobfuscator
# use this library

# When functions are broken runtime, disable renaming of function names
-D SKIP_FUNCTIONS

# when closure isn't used, strips many chars from the output. 
-D STRIP_CHARS


-lib closure
# The closure library plugs in the google closure compiler into your build. Make sure you use it.
# Add this library after `-lib hxobfuscator`

Enabling Google Closure Compiler

Use the closure haxelib, add -lib closure to your build.hxml. Also add this lib after -lib hxobfuscator for correct processing order.

How does it work?

In Haxe/JavaScript you can rewrites any path of a class or field during generation with the @:native("new_field_name") metadata. This libray attempts to add the @:native metadata on as much fields as possible. If the field already contains specific metadata, no rewrite is done.

Status

This library is very new, the obfuscator can break your build at runtime, always test the project in the browser yourself. I have still quite some issues with functions that get obfuscated. Use -D SKIP_FUNCTIONS when this is the case. The lib doesn't work on all of my projects, but I have good hopes to make it find out what those issue are.

Results

These are the first results of a relative small Haxe/JavaScript project. This project still needs SKIP_FUNCTIONS because otherwise it didn't run, still the results are promising:

Note: Closure Compiler is using SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS.

Troubleshooting

• Always test your builds if it works at run-time, there is a chance it doesn't work.
• In case it doesn't work for your build, you're just unlucky, remove the library.
• Please provide your feedback and ideas.