rails bootstrap-sass assets compilation error - undefined variable alert-padding
asset-pipeline, bootstrap-sass, ruby-on-rails
Solution
My specific problem turned out to be some code hiding in `application.rb`...
how I found it
I added `puts config.assets.precompile.inspect` to `config/environments/production.rb` and marvelled at the regex it output. Then I searched the codebase for "config.assets.precompile" and lo, in application.rb, there was:
config.assets.precompile << /(^[^_\/]|\/[^_])[^\/]*$/
...
config.assets.precompile += ["*.js", "*.css", "jquery-migrate-rails.js"]
which was causing the problem. (I'm slightly puzzled as I've triple checked those regexes and they shouldn't be picking up _alerts.scss... but lets gloss over that and focus on the fact that removing those lines fixed it)
Maybe this will help someone else...
Problem
all roads point to bootstrap-sass Referral chain: - railscast-328 (twitter bootstrap basics) refers to - http://www.sitepoint.com/twitter-bootstrap-less-and-sass-understanding-your-options-for-rails-3-1/ which refers to - https://github.com/jlong/sass-bootstrap which in turn exclaims there is a new official port of bootstrap to sass at - https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap-sass which is another one of the options in the twitter-bootstrap article It is reported as an issue with the bootstrap-rails gem: https://github.com/anjlab/bootstrap-rails/issues/91 I believe I installed it correctly The gems ``` gem 'sass-rails', '>= 3.2' # sass-rails needs to be higher than 3.2 gem 'bootstrap-sass', '~> 3.1.1' ``` are installed (tried outside and inside of assets group), application.css.scss contains ``` @import "bootstrap"; ``` only. but it gives me an error When attempting `bundle exec rake assets:precompile` it gives this error: ``` rake aborted! Undefined variable: "$alert-padding". (in /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bootstrap-sass-3.1.1.0/vendor/assets/stylesheets/bootstrap/_alerts.scss) /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bootstrap-sass-3.1.1.0/vendor/assets/stylesheets/bootstrap/_alerts.scss:10 /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/script/variable.rb:49:in `_perform' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/script/node.rb:40:in `perform' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:298:in `visit_prop' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:37:in `visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:100:in `visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:53:in `block in visit_children' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:53:in `map' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:53:in `visit_children' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:109:in `block in visit_children' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:121:in `with_environment' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:108:in `visit_children' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:37:in `block in visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:320:in `visit_rule' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:37:in `visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:100:in `visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:53:in `block in visit_children' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:53:in `map' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:53:in `visit_children' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:109:in `block in visit_children' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:121:in `with_environment' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:108:in `visit_children' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:37:in `block in visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:128:in `visit_root' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/base.rb:37:in `visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:100:in `visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/visitors/perform.rb:7:in `visit' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/tree/root_node.rb:20:in `render' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/engine.rb:315:in `_render' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-3.2.7/lib/sass/engine.rb:262:in `render' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sass-rails-3.2.6/lib/sass/rails/template_handlers.rb:106:in `evaluate' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/tilt-1.3.7/lib/tilt/template.rb:77:in `render' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/context.rb:193:in `block in evaluate' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/context.rb:190:in `each' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/context.rb:190:in `evaluate' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/processed_asset.rb:16:in `initialize' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/base.rb:18:in `new' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/base.rb:18:in `block in build_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:270:in `circular_call_protection' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/base.rb:14:in `build_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/index.rb:93:in `block in build_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/caching.rb:19:in `cache_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/index.rb:92:in `build_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:169:in `find_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/index.rb:14:in `find_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/bundled_asset.rb:12:in `initialize' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/base.rb:22:in `new' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/base.rb:22:in `build_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/index.rb:93:in `block in build_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/caching.rb:19:in `cache_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/index.rb:92:in `build_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:169:in `find_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/index.rb:14:in `find_asset' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/static_compiler.rb:41:in `block in compile' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:219:in `block in each_logical_path' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:206:in `block (2 levels) in each_file' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:196:in `each' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:196:in `each_entry' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:204:in `block in each_file' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:203:in `each' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:203:in `each_file' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sprockets-2.2.2/lib/sprockets/base.rb:217:in `each_logical_path' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/sprockets_overrides/static_compiler.rb:29:in `compile' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/tasks/assets.rake:108:in `internal_precompile' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/turbo-sprockets-rails3-0.3.11/lib/turbo-sprockets/tasks/assets.rake:115:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/task.rb:246:in `call' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/task.rb:246:in `block in execute' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/task.rb:241:in `each' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/task.rb:241:in `execute' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/task.rb:184:in `block in invoke_with_call_chain' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/1.9.1/monitor.rb:211:in `mon_synchronize' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/task.rb:177:in `invoke_with_call_chain' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/task.rb:170:in `invoke' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:143:in `invoke_task' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:101:in `block (2 levels) in top_level' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:101:in `each' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:101:in `block in top_level' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:110:in `run_with_threads' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:95:in `top_level' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:73:in `block in run' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:160:in `standard_exception_handling' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/lib/rake/application.rb:70:in `run' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rake-10.0.4/bin/rake:33:in `<top (required)>' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/bin/rake:23:in `load' /home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/bin/rake:23:in `<main>' ``` I checked that `/home/joe/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p448/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/bootstrap-sass-3.1.1.0/vendor/assets/stylesheets/bootstrap.scss` does actually import the _variables.scss file below it in the `bootsrap/` directory first (prior to _alerts.scss etc), and it does... and in _variables.scss it defines $alert_padding. I suspect I'm missing something obvious In the `environments/production.rb` file I commented everything about assets out, and tried just `config.assets.initialize_on_precompile = true` in accordance with the manual `https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap-sass` research so far - bootstrap-sass: Undefined variable: "$baseLineHeight" - Proper SCSS Asset Structure in Rails - Using twitter bootstrap with rails assets pipeline and less - https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap-sass/issues/79#issuecomment-4428595 - trying to import bootstrap via bootstrap-sass on heroku but getting an error - https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap-sass - https://github.com/anjlab/bootstrap-rails/issues/91 - railscast 328, 329 and 268 looking for clues - googling about - modifying gem's bootstrap/bootstrap.scss to use underscore and .scss, various tinkering such as commenting out lines relating to assets in `environments/production.rb`, commenting in only the one in the gem's page (manual) `config.assets.initialize_on_precompile = true` issue identified I copied the gem's contents into my assets directory, which is essentially what jlong's bootstrap did. its not looking at `application.css.scss`... its ignoring what I put in there and electing to instead look into the folders and loading those files. Which is why it sees alerts.scss first. I tried changing the name of _variables.scss to _aavariables.scss to no avail