Sass Extend&Inheritance

This is one of the most useful features of Sass. Using @extend lets you share a set of CSS properties from one selector to another. It helps keep your Sass very DRY. In our example we’re going to create a simple series of messaging for errors, warnings and successes using another feature which goes hand in hand with extend, placeholder classes. A placeholder class is a special type of class that only prints when it is extended, and can help keep your compiled CSS neat and clean.

SCSS SYNTAX

/* This CSS will print because %message-shared is extended. */
%message-shared {
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  padding: 10px;
  color: #333;
}

/*This CSS won't print because %equal-heights is never extended.*/
%equal-heights {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
}

.message {
  @extend %message-shared;
}

.success {
  @extend %message-shared;
  border-color: green;
}

.error {
  @extend %message-shared;
  border-color: red;
}

.warning {
  @extend %message-shared;
  border-color: yellow;
}

CSS OUTPUT

/* This CSS will print because %message-shared is extended. */
.message, .success, .error, .warning {
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  padding: 10px;
  color: #333;
}

.success {
  border-color: green;
}

.error {
  border-color: red;
}

.warning {
  border-color: yellow;
}

What the above code does is tells .message, .success, .error, and .warning to behave just like %message-shared. That means anywhere that %message-shared shows up, .message, .success, .error, & .warning will too. The magic happens in the generated CSS, where each of these classes will get the same CSS properties as %message-shared. This helps you avoid having to write multiple class names on HTML elements.

You can extend most simple CSS selectors in addition to placeholder classes in Sass, but using placeholders is the easiest way to make sure you aren’t extending a class that’s nested elsewhere in your styles, which can result in unintended selectors in your CSS.

Note that the CSS in %equal-heights isn’t generated, because %equal-heights is never extended.