NSass

by TBAPI-0KA

About

NSass is a .NET wrapper around libsass library. All information about libsass itself could be found in readme file under NSass.LibSass directory.

Primary development of NSass is completed at this moment. Features you can use:

• simple one-to-one C++/CLI wrapper around libsass
• high-level C# wrapper (however, without much of additional features)
• HTTP handler for live SASS processing
• Bundling and Minification support
• install all of the above throught NuGet

Some minor features are under development.

Main principles

• Very small modifications to original libsass code for easy merge;
• Simple as possible, almost without additional features;
• Easy to use.

Installation

If you have web project and want live SASS processing, just install NSass.Handler through NuGet:

PM> Install-Package NSass.Handler

Bundling and Minification is also supported, you will need one more package:

PM> Install-Package NSass.Optimization

Then you will be able to use SassBunle in your bundle configuration as usual:

bundles.Add(new SassBundle("~/bundles/sass").Include("~/Content/Site.scss"));

Bundling requires NSass.Handler in debug mode (BundleTable.EnableOptimizations == false or <compilation debug="true" />), but works without it in production mode.

If you want to play with libsass through your own C# code, core library will be enough:

PM> Install-Package NSass.Core

Manual build and istallation

Note about @import

By default, NSass core adds current directory as import path while compilining a file. NSass handler additionaly adds web project root. So you may use both relative and absolute paths in includes. For example, if you have Site.scss in your Content folder, and this file includes Common.scss from the same folder, everything below will work in the same way:

• @import "Common.scss";
• @import "Content/Common.scss";
• @import "/Content/Common.scss";
• @import "../Common.scss";

What is important to know - only first found file will be included. Searching process goes through current directory first, then through web site root. This may cause issues if you have another Content folder with Common.scss file inside, which is under root Content folder. Illustration:

/
	/Content
		Site.scss
		Common.scss // <-- this file will be not included
		/Content
			Common.scss // <-- only this

What about unit testing / dependency injection?

NSass is covered by a small pack of tests. They do not check correctness of SASS processing (what tests for SassC do), only parameters passing correctness.

You could mock NSass classes in your tests or use your favorite IoC container for initialization. There are two extension points - ISassInterface in C++/CLI code, and ISassCompiler in C# code, implemented as SassInterface and SassCompiler accordingly by default. In most cases you should deal with ISassCompiler only.

Roadmap

• SASS compilation tool for Windows for usage outside of .NET world.

All the other potential features (i. e. Compass support) will be merged from libsass when they will appear there.

Known issues

• libsass does not support other output styles than nested and compressed now, but declares them on interface level. You will get an exception when trying to use expanded, echo, or compact output style.