scssphp 1.1.1 Documentation

SCSSPHP Library

Including

The project can be loaded through a composer generated auto-loader.

Alternatively, the entire project can be loaded through a utility file. Just include it somewhere to start using it:

require_once 'scssphp/scss.inc.php';

Compiling

In order to manually compile code from PHP you must create an instance of the Compiler class. The typical flow is to create the instance, set any compile time options, then run the compiler with the compile method.

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;

$scss = new Compiler();

echo $scss->compile('
  $color: #abc;
  div { color: lighten($color, 20%); }
');

• compile($scssCode) will attempt to compile a string of SCSS code. If it succeeds then the CSS will be returned as a string. If there is any error, an exception is thrown with an appropriate error message.

Import Paths

When you import a file using the @import directive, the current path of your PHP script is used as the search path by default. This is often not what you want, so there are two methods for manipulating the import path: addImportPath, and setImportPaths.

• addImportPath($path) will append $path to the list of the import paths that are searched.

• setImportPaths($pathArray) will replace the entire import path with $pathArray. The value of $pathArray will be converted to an array if it isn’t one already.

If the import path is set to array() then importing is effectively disabled. The default import path is array(''), which means the current directory.

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;

$scss = new Compiler();
$scss->setImportPaths('assets/stylesheets/');

// will search for 'assets/stylesheets/mixins.scss'
echo $scss->compile('@import "mixins.scss";');

Besides adding static import paths, it’s also possible to add custom import functions. This allows you to load paths from a database, or HTTP, or using files that SCSS would otherwise not process (such as vanilla CSS imports).

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;

$scss = new Compiler();
$scss->addImportPath(function($path) {
    if (!file_exists('stylesheets/'.$path)) return null;
    return 'stylesheets/'.$path;
});

// will import 'stylesheets/vanilla.css'
echo $scss->compile('@import "vanilla.css";');

A list of the compiled files (both the primary file and its imports) can be retrieved using the getParsedFiles method.

• getParsedFiles() returns an associative array where the keys are the file names and the values are the corresponding file’s last-modified timestamp.

Preset Variables

You can preset variables before compilation by using the setVariables($vars) method. If the variable is also defined in your scss source, use the !default flag to prevent your preset variables from being overridden.

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;
-
$scss = new Compiler();
$scss->setVariables(array(
    'var' => 'false',
));

echo $scss->compile('$var: true !default;');

Note: the value is the scss source to be parsed. If you want to parse a string, you have to represent it as a string, e.g,, 'var' => '"string"'.

Likewise, you can retrieve the preset variables using the getVariables() method, and unset a variable using the unsetVariable($name) method.

Output Formatting

It’s possible to customize the formatting of the output CSS by changing the default formatter.

Five formatters are included:

• ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Expanded
• ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Nested (default)
• ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Compressed
• ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Compact
• ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Crunched

We can change the formatting using the setFormatter method.

• setFormatter($formatterName) sets the current formatter to $formatterName, the name of a class as a string that implements the formatting interface. See the source for ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Expanded for an example.

Given the following SCSS:

/*! Comment */
.navigation {
    ul {
        line-height: 20px;
        color: blue;
        a {
            color: red;
        }
    }
}

.footer {
    .copyright {
        color: silver;
    }
}

The formatters output the following:

ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Expanded:

/*! Comment */
.navigation ul {
  line-height: 20px;
  color: blue;
}
.navigation ul a {
  color: red;
}
.footer .copyright {
  color: silver;
}

ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Nested:

/*! Comment */
.navigation ul {
  line-height: 20px;
  color: blue; }
    .navigation ul a {
      color: red; }

.footer .copyright {
  color: silver; }

ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Compact:

/*! Comment */
.navigation ul { line-height:20px; color:blue; }

.navigation ul a { color:red; }

.footer .copyright { color:silver; }

ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Compressed:

/* Comment*/.navigation ul{line-height:20px;color:blue;}.navigation ul a{color:red;}.footer .copyright{color:silver;}

ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Formatter\Crunched:

.navigation ul{line-height:20px;color:blue;}.navigation ul a{color:red;}.footer .copyright{color:silver;}

You can also change the number precision using the setNumberPrecision($precision) method. (The default precision is 5.)

Source Line Debugging

You can output the original SCSS line numbers within the compiled CSS file for better frontend debugging.

This works well in combination with frontend debugging tools such as https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/firecompass-for-firebug/

To activate this feature, call the setLineNumberStyle method after creating a new instance of class Compiler.

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;

$directory = 'css';

$scss = new Compiler();
$scss->setLineNumberStyle(Compiler::LINE_COMMENTS);

echo $scss->compile('
  $color: #abc;
  div { color: lighten($color, 20%); }
');

Source Maps

Source Maps are useful in debugging compiled css files using browser developer tools.

To enable source maps, use the setSourceMap()' and setSourceMapOptions()` methods.

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;

$scss = new Compiler();
$scss->setSourceMap(Compiler::SOURCE_MAP_FILE);
$scss->setSourceMapOptions([
    // absolute path to write .map file
    'sourceMapWriteTo'  => '/var/www/vhost/my-style.map',

    // relative or full url to the above .map file
    'sourceMapURL'      => 'content/themes/THEME/assets/css/my-style.map',

    // (optional) relative or full url to the .css file
    'sourceMapFilename' => 'my-style.css',

    // partial path (server root) removed (normalized) to create a relative url
    'sourceMapBasepath' => '/var/www/vhost',

    // (optional) prepended to 'source' field entries for relocating source files
    'sourceRoot'        => '/',
]);

// use Compiler::SOURCE_MAP_INLINE for inline (comment-based) source maps

Custom Functions

It’s possible to register custom functions written in PHP that can be called from SCSS. Some possible applications include appending your assets directory to a URL with an asset-url function, or converting image URLs to an embedded data URI to reduce the number of requests on a page with a data-uri function.

We can add and remove functions using the methods registerFunction and unregisterFunction.

• registerFunction($functionName, $callable, $prototype) assigns the callable value to the name $functionName. The name is normalized using the rules of SCSS. Meaning underscores and dashes are interchangeable. If a function with the same name already exists then it is replaced. The optional $prototype is an array of parameter names.

• unregisterFunction($functionName) removes $functionName from the list of available functions.

The $callable can be anything that PHP knows how to call using call_user_func. The function receives two arguments when invoked. The first is an array of SCSS typed arguments that the function was sent. The second is an array of SCSS values corresponding to keyword arguments (aka kwargs).

The SCSS typed arguments and kwargs are actually just arrays that represent SCSS values. SCSS has different types than PHP, and this is how scssphp represents them internally.

For example, the value 10px in PHP would be array('number', 1, 'px'). There is a large variety of types. Experiment with a debugging function like print_r to examine the possible inputs.

The return value of the custom function can either be a SCSS type or a basic PHP type (such as a string or a number). If it’s a PHP type, it will be converted automatically to the corresponding SCSS type.

As an example, a function called add-two is registered, which adds two numbers together. PHP’s anonymous function syntax is used to define the function.

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;

$scss = new Compiler();

$scss->registerFunction(
  'add-two',
  function($args) {
    list($a, $b) = $args;

    return $a[1] + $b[1];
  }
);

$scss->compile('.ex1 { result: add-two(10, 10); }');

Using a prototype and kwargs, functions can take named parameters. In this next example, we register a function called divide which divides a named dividend by a named divisor.

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;

$scss = new Compiler();

$scss->registerFunction(
  'divide',
  function($args, $kwargs) {
    return $kwargs['dividend'][1] / $kwargs['divisor'][1];
  },
  array('dividend', 'divisor')
);

$scss->compile('.ex2 { result: divide($divisor: 2, $dividend: 30); }');

Note: in the above examples, we lose the units of the number, and we also don’t do any type checking. This will have undefined results if we give it anything other than two numbers.

For feature detection via the feature-exists() built-in function, you can register your custom feature using the addFeature method:

• addFeature($name) registers the $name.

Security Considerations

If your web appilcation compiles SCSS on-the-fly, you need to handle any potential exceptions thrown by the Compiler. This is especially important in a production environment where the content may be untrusted (e.g., user uploaded) because the exception stack trace may contain sensitive data.

use ScssPhp\ScssPhp\Compiler;

try {
    $scss = new Compiler();

    echo $scss->compile($content);
} catch (\Exception $e) {
    echo '';
    syslog(LOG_ERR, 'scssphp: Unable to compile content');
}

If your web application allows for arbitrary @import paths, you should tighten the open_basedir setting at run-time to mitigate vulnerability to local file inclusion (LFI) attack.

Server Example

An example Server class is described here: /scssphp/docs/server.html.