`Unrecognized input` error with LESS guarded mixin

Question

In my LESS project I am having issues getting my guarded mixins working with variables that I declared in another file. Here is the code I am working with:

_defaults.less (contains all of my variables)

//------------------------------------//
//  @INCLUDE
//------------------------------------//
// Set whatever components you want included
// in your project to `true` and any components
// you do not wish to be included to `false`

// Base
@use-main:        true;

_main.less (just a random partial in my project)

.main(@boolean) when (@boolean = true) {
    // Styles go here
}

// Execute mixin
.main(@use-main);

style.less (imports all of my partials)

//------------------------------------//
//  @IMPORTS  
//------------------------------------// 

// Base styles
@import "base/_main.less";

This is how my project is structured (for around 20 partials that are then imported into the style.less file).

Whenever I try to compile my project, I get this error:

Unrecognised input
c:\Users\Keenan\Documents\GitHub\concise.css-less\less\base_main.less line 1
c:\Users\Keenan\Documents\GitHub\concise.css-less\less\concise.less

Well, the syntax is correct so if there's a error it's not related to the "guarded mixin". Btw., the error points to `base_main.less` but in your examples its `base/_main.less`, are those different files or you just renamed things for the question? Don't you already have the complete project uploaded somewhere at GitHub? It's barely possible to diagnose the problem the way it is in the question because it compiles just fine in this minimal form (with latest Less compiler version at least). — seven-phases-max, Jul 07 '14 at 19:58
Oops, that was my mistake for the error, see above for the corrected version. Also, here is the full project: https://github.com/ConciseCSS/concise.css-less Thank you for your help — Keenan Payne, Jul 07 '14 at 20:07

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

The code you pasted is correct. In fact you are misled by lessc error message. It refers to the @main block. It seems the issue you are facing is related to your project Concise.css-less and more precisely this line.

@if @global-border-box == true {
// [...]
}

This is not the proper syntax for if statements in less. See question: How to use if statements in LESS

It seems you are converting a project from stylus to less. I would suggest cutting large chunks of files that fail to import to find out, through bisection, the lines that less doesn't recognize. Alternatively, you could comment the top mixins guards that are used here to include this or that part of the css, and that confuse less for error reporting.

For example, if you comment the first and last lines of file _lists.less:

//.lists(@boolean) when (@boolean = true) {
[...]
//.lists(@use-lists);

lessc will report the error near the proper line (actually it's > on line 111 that it doesn't like):

ParseError: Unrecognised input in concise.css-less/less/base/_lists.less on line 109, column 9:
108     .breakpoint(small) {
109         dl.dl-horizontal {
110             overflow: hidden;

You're right, I was being mislead. I changed that line to: http://pastebin.com/sTED3vKk But now I'm getting the exact same error in the `_lists.less` file... — Keenan Payne, Jul 07 '14 at 20:12

`Unrecognized input` error with LESS guarded mixin

1 Answers1