CSS::Tiny - Read/Write .css files with as little code as possible

    # In your .css file
    H1 { color: blue }
    H2 { color: red; font-family: Arial }
    .this, .that { color: yellow }

    # In your program
    use CSS::Tiny;

    # Create a CSS stylesheet
    my $CSS = CSS::Tiny->new();

    # Open a CSS stylesheet
    $CSS = CSS::Tiny->read( 'style.css' );

    # Reading properties
    my $header_color = $CSS->{H1}->{color};
    my $header2_hashref = $CSS->{H2};
    my $this_color = $CSS->{'.this'}->{color};
    my $that_color = $CSS->{'.that'}->{color};

    # Changing styles and properties
    $CSS->{'.newstyle'} = { color => '#FFFFFF' }; # Add a style
    $CSS->{H1}->{color} = 'black';                # Change a property
    delete $CSS->{H2};                            # Delete a style

    # Save a CSS stylesheet
    $CSS->write( 'style.css' );

    # Get the CSS as a <style>...</style> tag
    $CSS->html;

CSS::Tiny is a perl class to read and write .css stylesheets with as little code as possible, reducing load time and memory overhead. CSS.pm requires about 2.6 meg or ram to load, which is a large amount of overhead if you only want to do trivial things. Memory usage is normally scoffed at in Perl, but in my opinion should be at least kept in mind.

This module is primarily for reading and writing simple files, and anything we write shouldn't need to have documentation/comments. If you need something with more power, move up to CSS.pm. With the increasing complexity of CSS, this is becoming more common, but many situations can still live with simple CSS files.

CSS::Tiny supports grouped styles of the form CWthis, that { color: blue } correctly when reading, ungrouping them into the hash structure. However, it will not restore the grouping should you write the file back out. In this case, an entry in the original file of the form

    H1, H2 { color: blue }

would become

    H1 { color: blue }
    H2 { color: blue }

CSS::Tiny handles nested styles of the form CWP EM { color: red } in reads and writes correctly, making the property available in the form

    $CSS->{'P EM'}->{color}

CSS::Tiny ignores comments of the form CW/* comment */ on read correctly, however these comments will not be written back out to the file.

Files are written in a relatively human-orientated form, as follows:

    H1 {
        color: blue;
    }
    .this {
        color: red;
        font-size: 10px;
    }
    P EM {
        color: yellow;
    }

When reading and writing, all property descriptors, for example CWcolor and CWfont-size in the example above, are converted to lower case. As an example, take the following CSS.

    P {
        Font-Family: Verdana;
    }

To get the value CW'Verdana' from the object CW$CSS, you should reference the key CW$CSS->{P}->{font-family}.

The constructor CWnew creates and returns an empty CSS::Tiny object. The CWread constructor reads a CSS stylesheet, and returns a new CSS::Tiny object containing the properties in the file.

Returns the object on success, or CWundef on error. The CWread_string constructor reads a CSS stylesheet from a string.

Returns the object on success, or CWundef on error.

The CWwrite $filename generates the stylesheet for the properties, and writes it to disk. Returns true on success. Returns CWundef on error.

Generates the stylesheet for the object and returns it as a string.

The CWhtml method generates the CSS, but wrapped in a CWstyle HTML tag, so that it can be dropped directly onto a HTML page.

The CWhtml method generates the CSS, but wrapped in a CWstyle XHTML tag, so that it can be dropped directly onto an XHTML page.

When an error occurs, you can retrieve the error message either from the CW$CSS::Tiny::errstr variable, or using the CWerrstr method.

Bugs should be reported via the CPAN bug tracker at

<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=CSS-Tiny>

For other issues, or commercial enhancement or support, contact the author.

Adam Kennedy (Maintainer), <http://ali.as/>, cpan@ali.as

CSS, <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1>, Config::Tiny

Copyright 2002 - 2005 Adam Kennedy. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.