urls stored in variables - a few issues

[muszek]

It's quite possible that I simply don't know how to achieve what I want.

I was trying to hold background url in a variable. Couldn't do so, because:

One. I can't store a string with a colon (:) without enquoting the string.
@url: http://example.com;
div {
something: @url;
}

makes lessc run indefinitely (it just doesn't stop running)

Two. when I enquote the string (with either single or double quotation marks):
@url: "http://example.com";
div {
something: @url;
}
quotation marks are printed when I use this var
muszek@bobek:~/www/fooba/webroot/css$ ./less.sh test
div {
something: "http://example.com";
}

Three. finally, I can't seem to concatenate strings
@url: "http://example.com/a.png";
div {
background-url: url(@url);
}
turns to
div {
background-url: url(@url);
}
I tried different approaches, none of them worked. Is it possible to concatenate strings? It's very handy, for example in cases when you keep a path to images directory in one variable.

[cloudhead]

Hey, I might have something just for you: try the escape function:

foo: e("hello:world");

Output:

foo: hello:world;

[cloudhead]

There's also a format function:

@var: "world";
%("hello %s", @var);

Output

"hello world"

And they can be used together.

[muszek]

Thanks
How about string concatenation?
Example scenario (pseudo code):
.transparent-background(@opacity-level: 5) {
background-image: url(transparent-{@opacity-level}.png);
}

.transparent-background(2);

would output this:
background-image: url(transparent-2.png);

Is something similar implemented?

[muszek]

Thanks. And scratch the last post (started writing before you posted your 2nd)...

[cloudhead]

great.

[jamesfoster]

I don't understand why the compiler doesn't stop given your input. I get the following error:

Parse Error on line 2:
@url: http://example.com;
----^

we should catch all these when we add tests for error cases

[muszek]

While lessc is running, node takes 100% of my CPU.

I case there's a need for some data:
muszek@bobek:/www/fooba/webroot/css$ node --version
v0.1.91-35-g11f673e
muszek@bobek:/www/fooba/webroot/css$ cat test.less
@url: http://example.com;
div {
something: @url;
}
muszek@bobek:~/www/fooba/webroot/css$ /home/muszek/scripts/less.js/bin/lessc test.less

[muszek]

cloudhead: I tried the format function:
.transparent-background(@opacity_level: 5) {
background: %('url(stripes/1x1t%s.png)', @opacity_level) repeat 0% 100%;
}
but the output of the function is enclosed in quotes as well:
.round1 .box_inner {
background: "url(stripes/1x1t5.png)" repeat 0% 100%;
}
is there any way to shake off the quotes?

[jamesfoster]

e(%(...))

[muszek]

thanks. too bad there's another issue --> http://github.com/cloudhead/less.js/issues/issue/27