lessphp: watch imported files, too - less

Question

An always annoying problem i had with lessphp (and also less compiling in rails or python/django) is that it is only watching the file which to compile but NOT the imported files.
For example my less structure looks something like this:
// main.less
// (compiled to styles.css)
#import "variables"
#import "objects"
#import "theme"
.
// theme.less
// (actual styles)
body { background:#efefef }
So the actual compiled file is only the root to import the styles and files i work on. Everytime i make a change on my styles(theme.less) i have to edit the main.less so it gets recompiled.
Is there any option to check ALL files for changes like it does on client-side compile(less.js)?

Answer 1

When you inspect the source of the php lessc compiler, which can be found at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oyejorge/less.php/master/bin/lessc, you will found that the script only evaluate the modification time of the Less file that you have passed as argument.
When you less files are in /home/project/less you can add for instance the following code inside the while(1) loop in bin/less, around line 125:
while (1) {
clearstatcache();
//keep original code here
$dir = '/home/project/less';
$dh = opendir($dir);
while (false !== ($filename = readdir($dh))) {
if(preg_match('/\.less$/',$filename) && filemtime($filename) > $lastAction)
{
$updated = true;
break;
}
}
if($updated) break;
}