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General Discussion

Posted by Presian Nenov
Presian Nenov
3,872 Points

Why do we need to use -- in the variable names?

Up until now if you wanted to separate words in variable names, or anything, you'd just use one hyphen, for example: $color-main.

I'm not sure if I missed something, but why in $font-family--primary do we use two hyphens at the end?

1 Answer

Travis Alstrand
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Travis Alstrand
Treehouse Project Reviewer
Travis Alstrand
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Travis Alstrand
Treehouse Project Reviewer

Hey Presian Nenov !

I'm not sure what video this is referring to as this was posted in General Discussion, but it looks like it is SASS correct?

I'm not familiar with using two hyphens within the variable name like this, but it may be to make it easier to read and separate it a bit from the font-family beginning. Say we have multiple font-family variables, it may be easier and quicker to catch which one you're looking for with an extra 'space' in there.

$font-family--primary
$font-family--secondary
$font-family--footer

In CSS, it's mandatory to start your variable names with two hyphens

--font-primary
--font-secondary
--font-footer

This is done to to differentiate them from regular CSS properties. You can read more on CSS Variables here

Here is the SASS Basics video on naming variables that came to mind, but if you're referring to a different video / course, please post it so I can check it out! Thanks! :smiley:

Presian Nenov
Presian Nenov
3,872 Points

Yes it is SASS, I'm working through the "Modular CSS with Sass" course and saw Guil using two hyphens in the names and was confused.