Automatic LESS compilation using mod_rewrite and lessphp

I have been using LESS (and before SCSS) and I enjoy it, but I have to admit that I was spoiled by Symfony, Twig and Assetic that compile them automatically and I am really not looking forward to compile all my assets. I could use an application that watches a directory and compiles them on the fly, but there’s none that works on all OS and you still have to fire them up and configure them each time you start a project or reboot your computer.

Using lessphp, I made a simple script that will compile your LESS files, do some caching, gzip, etc.

It works by checking that a .css file exists. If not, it checks if the corresponding .less exists. If so, it fires up lessphp.

It is not perfect, but is worth using on simple projects.

Document Root fix in .htaccess when using VirtualDocumentRoot

CMS often come with a .htaccess that has a RewriteRule like this:

# RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ app.php [QSA,L]

The RewriteBase has to be enabled if you are using a VirtualDocumentRoot but when you are sharing code, developers may all have different setups.

By checking the content of DOCUMENT_ROOT, we can guess which setup we are using and prepend a / when necessary.

Note however that this method is heavy on string comparison which is slow and should not go on production.