Rails asset pipeline and digest values
asset-pipeline, rake, ruby, ruby-on-rails, sprockets
Solution
Grabbed from rails guides
When a filename is unique and based on its content, HTTP headers can be set to encourage caches everywhere (whether at CDNs, at ISPs, in networking equipment, or in web browsers) to keep their own copy of the content. When the content is updated, the fingerprint will change. This will cause the remote clients to request a new copy of the content. This is generally known as cache busting.
The technique that Rails uses for fingerprinting is to insert a hash of the content into the name, usually at the end. For example a CSS file global.css could be renamed with an MD5 digest of its contents
Problem
Does anyone know how exactly the asset digest value is calculated? If I have two JS files which contain various other included JS scripts then will each file maintain the same digest hash if none of the inner scripts have been changed? Or is a new digest value calculated each time the assets:precompile operation is run?