Importing Sass Partial Files in Your Main Sass File

The correct way to import a Sass partial file named 'styles' into your main Sass file is by using the command @import 'styles.scss';. This command is the default way of importing styles in Sass.

Sass, which stands for Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets, is a CSS preprocessor that lets developers use variables, nested rules, mixins, functions, and more, all with a fully CSS-compatible syntax.

Practical Example of Using Import Feature in Sass

You typically split your Sass styles across multiple files to maintain them easily. These files are then imported into one main Sass file which gets compiled into regular CSS. The @import feature in Sass is very powerful as it combines multiple Sass files into one CSS file, which leads to fewer HTTP requests, resulting in better performance of your website.

For instance, let's say you have a partial Sass file named '_styles.scss'. Don’t forget that for Sass, the partial files should start with an underline.

So, you would use the @import directive as follows in your main Sass file:

@import 'styles.scss';

This line of code will import all the styles from '_styles.scss' into your main Sass file.

It's worth noting that you should not use the file extension (.scss) with the @import directive as it's optional. Doing so won't result in a compile error; however, it's more of a best practice not to use the extension. The Sass compiler will correctly interpret the import either way. So you can also write the import statement as:

@import 'styles';

Additional Insights

When working with many style rules, using Sass partials and the import feature can be a game-changer. You can organize your code into logical and manageable chunks, and improve the performance of your web page. Just make sure to name your partial files correctly and remember the use of the @import directive to pull those styles into your main Sass file.