MVC4 StyleBundle: Can you add a cache-busting query string in Debug mode?

Caching Problem Overview

I've got an MVC application and I'm using the StyleBundle class for rendering out CSS files like this:

bundles.Add(new StyleBundle("~/bundles/css").Include("~/Content/*.css"));

The problem I have is that in Debug mode, the CSS urls are rendered out individually, and I have a web proxy that aggressively caches these urls. In Release mode, I know a query string is added to the final url to invalidate any caches for each release.

Is it possible to configure StyleBundle to add a random querystring in Debug mode as well to produce the following output to get around the caching issue?

<link href="/stylesheet.css?random=some_random_string" rel="stylesheet"/>

Caching Solutions

Solution 1 - Caching

You just need a unique string. It doesn't have to be Hash. We use the LastModified date of the file and get the Ticks from there. Opening and reading the file is expensive as @Todd noted. Ticks is enough to output a unique number that changes when the file is changed.

internal static class BundleExtensions
{
    public static Bundle WithLastModifiedToken(this Bundle sb)
    {
        sb.Transforms.Add(new LastModifiedBundleTransform());
        return sb;
    }
    public class LastModifiedBundleTransform : IBundleTransform
    {
        public void Process(BundleContext context, BundleResponse response)
        {
            foreach (var file in response.Files)
            {
                var lastWrite = File.GetLastWriteTime(HostingEnvironment.MapPath(file.IncludedVirtualPath)).Ticks.ToString();
                file.IncludedVirtualPath = string.Concat(file.IncludedVirtualPath, "?v=", lastWrite);
            }
        }
    }
}

and how to use it:

bundles.Add(new StyleBundle("~/bundles/css")
    .Include("~/Content/*.css")
    .WithLastModifiedToken());

and this is what MVC writes:

<link href="bundles/css/site.css?v=635983900813469054" rel="stylesheet"/>

works fine with Script bundles too.

Solution 2 - Caching

You can create a custom IBundleTransform class to do this. Here's an example that will append a v=[filehash] parameter using a hash of the file contents.

public class FileHashVersionBundleTransform: IBundleTransform
{
    public void Process(BundleContext context, BundleResponse response)
    {
        foreach(var file in response.Files)
        {
            using(FileStream fs = File.OpenRead(HostingEnvironment.MapPath(file.IncludedVirtualPath)))
            {
                //get hash of file contents
                byte[] fileHash = new SHA256Managed().ComputeHash(fs);

                //encode file hash as a query string param
                string version = HttpServerUtility.UrlTokenEncode(fileHash);
                file.IncludedVirtualPath = string.Concat(file.IncludedVirtualPath, "?v=", version);
            }                
        }
    }
}

You can then register the class by adding it to the Transforms collection of your bundles.

new StyleBundle("...").Transforms.Add(new FileHashVersionBundleTransform());

Now the version number will only change if the file contents change.

Solution 3 - Caching

This library can add the cache-busting hash to your bundle files in debug mode, as well as a few other cache-busting things: https://github.com/kemmis/System.Web.Optimization.HashCache

You can apply HashCache to all bundles in a BundlesCollection

Execute the ApplyHashCache() extension method on the BundlesCollection Instance after all bundles have been added to the collection.

BundleTable.Bundles.ApplyHashCache();

Or you can apply HashCache to a single Bundle

Create an instance of the HashCacheTransform and add it to the bundle instance you want to apply HashCache to.

var myBundle = new ScriptBundle("~/bundle_virtual_path").Include("~/scripts/jsfile.js");
myBundle.Transforms.Add(new HashCacheTransform());

Solution 4 - Caching

I've had the same problem but with cached versions in client browsers after an upgrade. My solution is to wrap the call to @Styles.Render("~/Content/css") in my own renderer that appends our version number in the query string like this:

    public static IHtmlString RenderCacheSafe(string path)
    {
        var html = Styles.Render(path);
        var version = VersionHelper.GetVersion();
        var stringContent = html.ToString();

        // The version should be inserted just before the closing quotation mark of the href attribute.
        var versionedHtml = stringContent.Replace("\" rel=", string.Format("?v={0}\" rel=", version));
        return new HtmlString(versionedHtml);
    }

And then in the view I do like this:

@RenderHelpers.RenderCacheSafe("~/Content/css")

Solution 5 - Caching

Not currently but this is slated to be added soon (right now scheduled for the 1.1 stable release, you can track this issue here: Codeplex

Solution 6 - Caching

Note this is written for Scripts but also works for Styles (just change those key words)

Building on @Johan's answer:

public static IHtmlString RenderBundle(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string path)
{
	var context = new BundleContext(htmlHelper.ViewContext.HttpContext, BundleTable.Bundles, string.Empty);
	var bundle = System.Web.Optimization.BundleTable.Bundles.GetBundleFor(path);
	var html = System.Web.Optimization.Scripts.Render(path).ToString();
	foreach (var item in bundle.EnumerateFiles(context))
	{
		if (!html.Contains(item.Name))
			continue;

		html = html.Replace(item.Name, item.Name + "?" + item.LastWriteTimeUtc.ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmss"));
	}

	return new HtmlString(html);
}

public static IHtmlString RenderStylesBundle(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string path)
{
	var context = new BundleContext(htmlHelper.ViewContext.HttpContext, BundleTable.Bundles, string.Empty);
	var bundle = System.Web.Optimization.BundleTable.Bundles.GetBundleFor(path);
	var html = System.Web.Optimization.Styles.Render(path).ToString();
	foreach (var item in bundle.EnumerateFiles(context))
	{
		if (!html.Contains(item.Name))
			continue;

		html = html.Replace(item.Name, item.Name + "?" + item.LastWriteTimeUtc.ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmss"));
	}

	return new HtmlString(html);
}

Usage:

@Html.RenderBundle("...")
@Html.RenderStylesBundle("...")

Replacing

@Scripts.Render("...")
@Styles.Render("...")

Benefits:

Works for v1.0.0.0 of System.Web.Optimizations
Works on multiple files in the bundle
Gets the file modification date, rather than hashing, of each file, rather than a group

Also, when you need to quickly workaround Bundler:

public static MvcHtmlString ResolveUrl(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string url)
{
	var urlHelper = new UrlHelper(htmlHelper.ViewContext.RequestContext);
	var resolvedUrl = urlHelper.Content(url);

	if (resolvedUrl.ToLower().EndsWith(".js") || resolvedUrl.ToLower().EndsWith(".css"))
	{
		var localPath = HostingEnvironment.MapPath(resolvedUrl);
		var fileInfo = new FileInfo(localPath);
		resolvedUrl += "?" + fileInfo.LastWriteTimeUtc.ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmss");
	}

	return MvcHtmlString.Create(resolvedUrl);
}