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CSS Sass Basics Improve Your Workflow with Sass Use the Ampersand to Reference Parent Selectors

Posted by bill curry
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
bill curry
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 7,841 Points

I'm missing the benefit of &

What's the benefit of the &?

In the example below, why not just say .intro p (as opposed to .intro &)? It seems like it's an unnecessary layer of complexity.

p {
  margin-bottom: 1.25em;
  .intro & {
    font-size: 1.2em;
  }
}

1 Answer

Brice Roberts
Brice Roberts
22,415 Points
Brice Roberts
Brice Roberts
22,415 Points

The ampersand operator is a very powerful tool for nesting classes in CSS. In this example, it doesn't really save you time, because you could have just as easily written 

p .intro {
  margin-bottom: 1.25em;
  font-size: 1.2em;
}

In simple code, advanced tricks like this don't really seem logical, but for example...

.button {
  &:visited { }
  &:hover { }
  &:active { }
}

compiles to

.button:visited { }
.button:hover { }
.button:active { }

which is not the same as

.button .hover {
}

check out the link here for more visual and in depth explanation. It really is a helpful tool to save you time.

https://css-tricks.com/the-sass-ampersand/

bill curry
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
bill curry
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 7,841 Points

Thanks for the link. I appreciate it