compiling lesscss files by phantomJS - less

Question

hej I got idea to compile lesscss files while building my project with maven.
looking at lesscss site it is possible to compile those files referencing them in head section of html file like this
<link rel="stylesheet/less" type="text/css" href="styles.less">
<script src="less.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
phantom's script can access any file on local hard drive so it should be possible to loop over *.less files. now the question is how to compile those files and save them back with css extension.
the pity is that command line is available only when installed to node (or maybe I wrong??)
thanks for any hint

Answer 1

well after giving it a second try I created this script
console.log('*********************************************************************');
console.log('executing script ' + phantom.scriptName);
console.log('phantomJS version ' + phantom.version.major + '.' + phantom.version.minor + '.' + phantom.version.patch);
console.log('*********************************************************************');
console.log('looks for less files under src/main/webapp/* and src/main/resources/*');
console.log('to change this pass root directory as script parameter');
console.log('example Usage: phantomjs-less.js src/main/resources/css');
console.log('*********************************************************************');
var root_directory = null;
if (phantom.args.length !== 0) {
root_directory = phantom.args[0];
}
console.log('injecting less script');
phantom.injectJs('src/main/webapp/js/less-1.2.2.js');
var parser = new(less.Parser);
var searchLessIn = function(root, fs) {
console.log('look for less in ' + root);
if (fs.isDirectory(root)) {
var files = fs.list(root);
for (var index = 2; index < files.length; index ++ ) {
searchLessIn(root + '/' + files[index], fs);
}
} else {
if (root.substr(-5) === '.less'){
parseLess(root, fs);
}
}
console.log('exit ' + root);
};
var parseLess = function(file, fs) {
console.log('parse less file : ' + file);
var opened = fs.read(file);
console.log(opened);
parser.parse(opened, function (err, tree) {
if (err) { return console.error(err); }
console.log(tree.toCSS());
});
};
var fs = require('fs');
console.log('*********************************************************************');
console.log('current root directory =' + fs.workingDirectory);
var root = fs.workingDirectory + '/src/main/webapp/css';
console.log('look for less files under ' + root);
if (!fs.exists(root)) {
console.log(root + ' directory doesnt exists')
phantom.exit(1);
}
searchLessIn(root, fs);
phantom.exit(0);
it should print parsed css to console

Answer 2

try lesscss maven plugin https://github.com/marceloverdijk/lesscss-maven-plugin
it uses rhino, so instead of 100ms it'll take 3000ms, but it works and all you do is put some xml into pom.xml