C# Code Minification Tools and Techniques

Question

I realize this is a rather odd request, but I was wondering if anyone was aware of some minification/obfuscation tools that work on C# source code (not a compiled assembly). I am trying to reduce the character count of an already written application to meet a character limit and I can't seem to find any tools that will help me achieve this task.

Main features I am interested in:

• Strip Whitespace
• Shorten Variable Names

It doesn't have to be a full on obfuscator, just something that will reduce the character count of a block of code quickly and conveniently.

This is not intended to have any practical or real world application, it's for a competition.

• Svante Svenson: Why on earth would you want to do that?
• Richard Nienaber: My I ask why your code has a character limit?
• Nathan Taylor: I'm trying to meet a chracter limit that's all. Nothing to do with security or anything.
• Nathan W: but why is there a character limit, is it for a comp?
• Nathan Taylor: I can absolutely do it by hand if need be, but I wanted to see if anyone was aware of such a tool before I went that route. I'm just investigating my options is all :)

Answer 1

I developed small lib for C# code minification CSharpMinifier based on NRefactory. Now it can remove comments, whitespaces and line breaks. Next I'am planning to add identifier minification.

Answer 2

I am not aware of any such tool, but it would not be too hard to do some variable renaming using the built in refactor tools in Visual Studio.

For the whitespace, a regex find-replace, to replace any multiple spaces (:Wh+ in VS replace) with a single space.

• Mekanik: Merging multiple spaces to a single space might break the program if spaces are inside a string literal.

Answer 3

@Ivan's CSharpMinifier didn't work for me. So I am using this one instead. There is a demo web app if you want to try.

• Vinícius Negrão: This one is very good. Although it doesn't minify private member names, it does a good job of minifying the code (~50% for mine)

Answer 4

This is a good online version to beautify/minify Code Beautify.