What is it called when you remove all the unnecessary characters from source code without changing its functionality?

• A. minify
• B. minimize
• C. compress
• D. refactor

Answer: (A)

Minification is the process of removing all unnecessary characters from source code without changing what the code does. This means stripping out whitespace, comments, and sometimes shortening identifiers, so the file size shrinks but the program’s behavior remains the same. This is why it’s used to speed up web pages by reducing download times for scripts and stylesheets.

Why this term fits: it precisely describes reducing the size of code without affecting functionality, which is the essence of the task. Other terms don’t fit as well: compress usually implies encoding the data for transmission and requires decompression to run; refactor involves altering the structure for readability or maintainability, which can change how code looks or behaves even if the goal is to preserve behavior; minimize isn’t the standard term used in programming practice.