LESS - Import Options Reference Keyword

Description

The @import (reference) is used to import external files but it will not add imported styles to compiled CSS file. This was released in version 1.5.0.

Example

The following example demonstrates the use of reference keyword in the LESS file −

<html>
   <head>
     <link rel = "stylesheet" href = "style.css" type = "text/css" />
     <title>Import Options Reference</title>
   </head>

   <body>
      <h1>Welcome to Tutorialspoint</h1>
      <p>LESS is a CSS pre-processor that enables customizable, 
      manageable and reusable style sheet for web site.</p>
   </body>
</html>

Next, create the style.less file.

style.less

@import (reference) "http://www.tutorialspoint.com/less/import_reference.less";
p {
   .style1;
}

The following code will import the import_reference.less file into style.less from the https://www.tutorialspoint.com/less/import_reference.less path −

import_reference.less

.style1 {
   color: #A0A0A0;
   font-family: "Comic Sans MS";
   font-size: 20px;
}

You can compile the style.less to style.css by using the following command −

lessc style.less style.css

Execute the above command; it will create the style.css file automatically with the following code −

style.css

p {
   color: #A0A0A0;
   font-family: "Comic Sans MS";
   font-size: 20px;
}

Output

Follow these steps to see how the above code works −

  • Save the above html code in the import_options_reference.html file.

  • Open this HTML file in a browser, the following output will get displayed.

LESS Import Options Reference

The reference has the extend method that pulls in a new selector at the place where you refer the @import statement and marks it as not referenced. For more information, click here.

less_import_options.htm
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