Dynamically generate static CSS file which uses PHP variables

Question

I am currently getting CSS values from my database using PHP variables. This works as a php include, however I want to generate a static .css file using the output of these variables pulled from the DB. Not sure how to go about this?

css.php

<?
$sql = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM styles"); //gets background_color (#000) from DB
$sql->execute();
$result = $sql->fetch();

foreach ($result as $k => $v) { 
    $$k = $v; //makes background_color = $background_color = #000
}

<style type="text/css">
.content {
    background-color: <?=$background_color?>;
}
?>

index.php

<? require_once "css.php"; ?>

I want a static styles.css generated using css.php to look like this:

.content { background-color: ; }

i was in the exact same situation not so long ago, solution can be found HERE , would be nice if the question itself could be up-voted, so that it can stay as reference — HenryW
– HenryW, Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 0:05

MrYellow · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-24 00:25:30Z

"I want to generate a static .css file"

PHP:

# Generate some CSS string.
$css = '.class { color: #fff }';

# Save string to a file.
file_put_contents('/path/to/static.css', $css);

By requiring css.php you are actually using a dynamic PHP file to recalculate and output the CSS on every hit, then echo it into the current document. The require is overhead as the harddrive needs to be accessed, more efficient to have the browser request the separate file using normal CSS file include tags.

If you want a dynamic generated CSS file then another approach would be to have *.css handled as PHP for a specific directory.

.htaccess:

<FilesMatch "\.css$">
  SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
  Header set Content-type "text/css"
</FilesMatch>

Then you can have PHP code inside your "css" file. Be aware any other css files that match the htaccess rules will also be parsed by PHP, regardless of if they actually contain any PHP code.

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