LESS css syntax error when referencing variable from namespace

Question

I'm getting a syntax error when attempting to reference a variable from a namespace in LESS:

#testns {
    @my_color: #04ffff;
    .me() {
        color: blue;
    }
}

.fun {
    color: #testns[@my_color];
}

The mixin works fine if I do the following:

.fun {
    #testns > .me();
}

But I'm not able to reference the variable from the namespace for some reason. I'm building these in Java using the asual library, and everything else is working perfectly.

I don't think that's how namespaces work. You can set local variables in the namespace and reference them in mixin rules, but you can't access the variables directly (AFAIK) — Evan Davis
– Evan Davis, Commented Dec 28, 2011 at 16:21
@Mathletics: thanks for this comment, it helped me. Why don't you post it as an answer? — periklis
– periklis, Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 8:49

Evan Davis · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-26 14:35:30Z

5

This isn't how namespaces work. Namespaces allow you to declare local-scope variables to use in mixins (sort of like a CSS closure, ha!), and the mixins can be referenced from outside the namespace bundle. The variable inside the namespace are private, however, and cannot be referenced from outside the namespace.

answered Jan 26, 2012 at 14:35

Evan Davis

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3 Comments

zanona Over a year ago

From lesscss.org: “Sometimes, you may want to group your variables or mixins, for organizational purposes…” perhaps they should make the text a bit less ambiguous.

Evan Davis Over a year ago

@zanona you are absolutely right. They do not explicitly state that variables aren't accessible from outside, though you could infer it from the next section on scoping. The parser doesn't actually know the difference between an id selector declaration and a #namespace block, except that the latter has no declared rules, only variables and mixins. So, at least right now, variables are trapped in their scope.

Ryan Norbauer Over a year ago

Docs have been updated to state how this works more clearly: github.com/less/less-docs/pull/154/files

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