Dynamically define a variable in LESS CSS

Question

I am trying to create a mixin that dynamically defines variables in LESS CSS, by actually assigning them a composite name.

The simplified use-case (not the real one)

Answer 1

I`m not really sure for what you want to use this, but one of my suggestion is based on @ScottS answer. On my real world, I need to create a web app, where it would show several brands and each brand have their own text color, background and so on... so I started to chase a way to accomplish this in LESS, what I could easily do on SASS and the result is below:

LESS

// Code from Seven Phase Max
// ............................................................
// .for
.for(@i, @n) {.-each(@i)}
.for(@n)     when (isnumber(@n)) {.for(1, @n)}
.for(@i, @n) when not (@i = @n)  {
    .for((@i + (@n - @i) / abs(@n - @i)), @n);
}

// ............................................................
// .for-each

.for(@array)   when (default()) {.for-impl_(length(@array))}
.for-impl_(@i) when (@i > 1)    {.for-impl_((@i - 1))}
.for-impl_(@i)                  {.-each(extract(@array, @i))}


// Brands
@dodge : "dodge";
@ford : "ford";
@chev : "chev";

// Colors
@dodge-color : "#fff";
@ford-color : "#000";
@chev-color : "#ff0";

// Setting variables and escaping than
@brands: ~"dodge" ~"ford" ~"chev";

// Define our variable   
.define(@var) {
  @brand-color: '@{var}-color';
}

// Starting the mixin
.color() {
    // Generating the loop to each brand
    .for(@brands); .-each(@name) {
        // After loop happens, it checks what brand is being called
        .define(@name);
         // When the brand is found, match the selector and color
        .brand-@{name} & {
            color: @@brand-color;
        }
    }
}

.carColor {
    .color();
}

Te result will be:

CSS

.brand-dodge .carColor {
    color: "#fff";
}
.brand-ford .carColor {
    color: "#000";
}
.brand-chev .carColor {
    color: "#ff0";
}

This is very tricky and I had to use several elements to get what I needed, first used a set of mixins provided by Seven Phase Max and you can find it here and than, the @ScottS answer was the piece that was missing fro my puzzle... hope this helps you and others that need to create a set of Variables to be part of another variable and create a more dynamic less file.

You can copy my entire code and test at http://lesstester.com/