Less could use stricter name resolution

[jonsa]

I'm not sure if I should call this a bug or a feature request, but this recently bit me.

this is simplified code and not production code

.placeholder(@color: #333333) {
    &::-webkit-input-placeholder  { color: @color; }
}
input {
    .placeholder();
}
.placeholder {
    background: #ffffff;
}

which will output

input {
    background: #ffffff;
}
input::-webkit-input-placeholder {
    color: #333333;
}
.placeholder {
    background: #ffffff;
}

I'm not sure if this is by design, but I propose stricter name resolution where .name != .name()

[SomMeri]

This was by design, so that people can use rulesets (at least some of them) from third party sheets. Pure mixins .name() came only later. I do not think we can change this, too many sheets would end up broken.

[seven-phases-max]

As @SomMeri already mentioned this is too old Less feature to be changed.

For the particular use-case one of possible workarounds is to isolate conflicting classes in unnamed scope so they won't interfere with external names:

.placeholder(@color: #333333) {
    &::-webkit-input-placeholder  { color: @color; }
}

input {
    .placeholder();
}

& { // unnamed namespace

.placeholder {
    background: #ffffff;
}

} // ~ end of unnamed namespace

[lukeapage]

Another 2 work arounds

1. Rename the mix in or class
2. Add a required argument

[seven-phases-max]

Another 2 work arounds

Yep, these would be more straightforward workarounds in a generic case, but from the original SO question I knew the mixin is defined in an external library and cannot be changed.