LESS mixing duplicate properties - less

Question

When using LESS, i found usefull to mix classes, in order to create a new class based on other class properties, but sometimes i need to override them.
like:
.btn {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: blue;
font-size:10px;
}
.btn_warning {
.btn;
background-color: yellow;
font-size: 12px;
}
The output has duplicated properties:
.btn {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: blue;
font-size:10px;
}
.btn_warning {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: blue;
font-size:10px;
background-color: yellow;
font-size: 12px;
}
I know there are multiple aproaches for this, like multiple classes on dom, or even #extend to build multiple selectors, but navigator still overriding at runtime the properties.
Is there any reason to duplicate same properties when mixin? Seems a simple way for making "independent" groups of properties, but not nice if has duplicated values.

Answer 1

LESS does not account for removal of duplicate properties within a block, at least in part because of this reason stated here (quote slightly modified for grammar fix):
The trouble is that people frequently use multiple properties in order
to provide a fallback for older browsers. Removing the properties is
not something that it would be good to do generically.
It is left up to the programmer to not program it for duplication. You can set up a basic mixin like what Danny Kijkov noted in his answer, or...
Solution #1 (Complex, but Powerful to Fully Define)
You can get elaborate in building a master button maker mixin. Something like this:
LESS (Mixin)
.makeBtn(#ext: null; #rad: 10px; #color: blue; #size: 10px;) {
.set-extension() when (#ext = null) {
#class-extension: ~'';
}
.set-extension() when not (#ext = null) {
#class-extension: ~'_#{ext}';
}
.set-extension();
.btn#{class-extension} {
border-radius: #rad;
background-color: #color;
font-size: #size;
//define various addtions based on extensions here
.specialExtensionProps() when (#ext = danger) {
border: 3px solid red;
}
.specialExtensionProps() when (#ext = someExtName) {
my-special-prop: yep;
}
.specialExtensionProps();
}
}
LESS (Use the Mixin Various Ways)
.makeBtn(); //makes base button
.makeBtn(warning; #color: yellow; #size: 12px); //makes modified button
.makeBtn(danger; #color: red;); //makes modified button
.makeBtn(someExtName, 15px); //makes modified button
CSS Output
.btn {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: #0000ff;
font-size: 10px;
}
.btn_warning {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: #ffff00;
font-size: 12px;
}
.btn_danger {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: #ff0000;
font-size: 10px;
border: 3px solid red;
}
.btn_someExtName {
border-radius: 15px;
background-color: #0000ff;
font-size: 10px;
my-special-prop: yep;
}
In case you did not know, note the above demonstrated LESS functionality of setting only some variables from the set of mixin variables. So for the first two specialized .makeBtn() calls, I only set a few variables, out of order from the mixin, by explicitly calling the variable name to set (e.g. #color: yellow). This allows me to "skip" over setting the #size. In the last example, I was only setting the first two values, so I did not need to put any variable names.
I don't know if the above helps you get what you want, but it does offer a different way of being able to reduce code size.
Solution #2
You mentioned :extend(), which could be well used here to avoid duplication:
LESS
.btn {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: blue;
font-size:10px;
}
.btn_warning {
&:extend(.btn);
background-color: yellow;
font-size: 12px;
}
CSS Output
.btn,
.btn_warning {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: blue;
font-size: 10px;
}
.btn_warning {
background-color: yellow;
font-size: 12px;
}
Solution #3
In your case, if all the buttons will be of either class .btn or a .btn_SOMETHING form, and you are not using .btn_ for anything else but buttons, then you might be able to just use the CSS cascade to apply styles and prevent duplication of CSS code like so (no special LESS required):
LESS and CSS Output
.btn, [class *= btn_] {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: blue;
font-size:10px;
}
.btn_warning {
background-color: yellow;
font-size: 12px;
}
Any html with the class btn_warning will first get the base button styles from the attribute selector [class *= btn_] while the actual btn_warning class will override the things set to be overridden.
Solution #4
If you split the class names in the html (so class="btn warning" rather than class="btn_warning"), then this works to avoid duplication:
LESS and CSS Output
.btn {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: blue;
font-size:10px;
}
.btn.warning {
background-color: yellow;
font-size: 12px;
}

Answer 2

What about this solution?
.btn(#size: 10px, #color:blue) {
border-radius: 10px;
background-color: #color;
font-size:#size;
}
.btn_warning {
.btn(12px, yellow);
}