NAME

CSS::Tiny - Read/Write .css files with as little code as possible

SYNOPSIS

    # In your .css file
    H1 { color: blue }
    H2 { color: red; font-family: Arial }
    .this, .that { color: yellow }
	
    # In your program
    use CSS::Tiny;

    # Create a css stylesheet
    my $CSS = CSS::Tiny->new();

    # Open a css stylesheet
    $CSS = CSS::Tiny->read( 'style.css' );

    # Reading properties
    my $header_color = $CSS->{H1}->{color};
    my $header2_hashref = $CSS->{H2};
    my $this_color = $CSS->{'.this'}->{color};
    my $that_color = $CSS->{'.that'}->{color};

    # Changing styles and properties
    $CSS->{'.newstyle'} = { color => '#FFFFFF' }; # Add a style
    $CSS->{H1}->{color} = 'black';                # Change a property
    delete $CSS->{H2};                            # Delete a style

    # Save a css stylesheet
    $CSS->write( 'style.css' );

DESCRIPTION

CSS::Tiny is a perl class to read and write .css stylesheets with as little code as possible, reducing load time and memory overhead. CSS.pm requires about 2.6 meg or ram to load, which is a large amount of overhead if you only want to do trivial things. Memory usage is normally scoffed at in Perl, but in my opinion should be at least kept in mind.

This module is primarily for reading and writing simple files, and anything we write shouldn't need to have documentation/comments. If you need something with more power, move up to CSS.pm.

CSS Feature Support

CSS::Tiny supports grouped styles of the form this, that { color: blue } in reads correctly, ungrouping them into the hash structure. However, it will not restore the grouping should you write the file back out. In this case, an entry in the original file of the form

H1, H2 { color: blue }

would become

H1 { color: blue } H2 { color: blue }

CSS::Tiny handles nested styles of the form P EM { color: red } in reads and writes correctly, making the property available in the form

$CSS-{'P EM'}->{color}>

CSS::Tiny ignores comments of the form /* comment */ on read, however these comments will not be written back out to the file.

CSS FILE SYNTAX

Files are written in a highly human readable form, as follows

H1 {
    color: blue;
}
.this {
	color: red;
	font-size: 10px;
}
P EM {
	color: yellow;
}

METHODS

new()

The constructor new() creates and returns an empty CSS::Tiny object.

read( $filename )

The read() constructor reads a css stylesheet, and returns a new CSS::Tiny object containing the properties in the file. Returns the object on success. Returns undef on error.

read_string( $string )

The read_string() constructor reads a css stylesheet from a string. Returns the object on success, and undef on error.

write()

The write( $filename ) generates the stylesheet for the properties, and writes it to disk. Returns true on success. Returns undef on error.

write_string()

Generates the stylesheet for the object and returns it as a string.

errstr()

When an error occurs, you can retrieve the error message either from the $CSS::Tiny::errstr variable, or using the errstr() method.

SUPPORT

Contact the author

AUTHOR

Adam Kennedy ( maintainer )
cpan@ali.as
http://ali.as/

SEE ALSO

CSS, http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2002 Adam Kennedy. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.