Introduction to Gulp

Gulp is a powerful toolkit that allows developers to automate and enhance their workflows. It is a streaming build system that utilizes Node.js and available as an open-source module. With Gulp, developers can efficiently front-load tasks such as file minification, concatenation, and watching files for changes. This tutorial introduces Gulp and its numerous useful APIs through comprehensive explanations and practical code snippets.

Setting up Gulp

  npm install --global gulp-cli
  npm install --save-dev gulp

Creating a Simple Gulp Task

A basic Gulp task consists of importing Gulp and defining a function. Here is how you can create a simple Hello World task:

  const gulp = require('gulp');

  gulp.task('hello', function(done) {
    console.log('Hello, World!');
    done();
  });

Gulp APIs and Examples

gulp.src()

Specifies the files to be used as inputs for the task.

  gulp.task('copyHTML', function() {
    return gulp.src('src/*.html')
      .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
  });

gulp.dest()

Specifies the output destination for the files processed in the pipeline.

gulp.watch()

Watches files for changes and reruns tasks when a change is detected.

  gulp.task('watch', function() {
    gulp.watch('src/js/*.js', gulp.series('scripts'));
    gulp.watch('src/css/*.css', gulp.series('styles'));
  });

gulp.series()

Runs tasks in series, one after another.

  gulp.task('default', gulp.series('clean', 'build'));

gulp.parallel()

Runs multiple tasks in parallel.

  gulp.task('default', gulp.parallel('styles', 'scripts'));

Real-world Application Example

This example demonstrates using multiple Gulp APIs to build a project that processes JavaScript and CSS files, resulting in optimized output.

  const gulp = require('gulp');
  const cleanCSS = require('gulp-clean-css');
  const uglify = require('gulp-uglify');
  const concat = require('gulp-concat');

  gulp.task('styles', function() {
    return gulp.src('src/css/*.css')
      .pipe(cleanCSS())
      .pipe(concat('all.min.css'))
      .pipe(gulp.dest('dist/css'));
  });

  gulp.task('scripts', function() {
    return gulp.src('src/js/*.js')
      .pipe(uglify())
      .pipe(concat('all.min.js'))
      .pipe(gulp.dest('dist/js'));
  });

  gulp.task('watch', function() {
    gulp.watch('src/css/*.css', gulp.series('styles'));
    gulp.watch('src/js/*.js', gulp.series('scripts'));
  });

  gulp.task('default', gulp.series('styles', 'scripts', 'watch'));

Utilize the above Gulp tasks to create efficient build workflows, improving productivity and keeping project files organized and optimized. With Gulp’s rich API and powerful plugins, the automation possibilities are virtually endless.

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