error on UTF-8 with sugnature files

[Igorbek]

When trying to process file with UTF-8 with signature (BOM) encoding, getting error:

ERROR -- filename, line 1: invalid top-level expression

[HamptonMakes]

Can you attach a sample failing file?

• Hampton

On Jul 6, 2012, at 10:27 AM, [email protected] wrote:

When trying to process file with UTF-8 with signature (BOM) encoding, getting error:

ERROR -- filename, line 1: invalid top-level expression

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#22

[Igorbek]

Sure!
...ah. How to attach a file here? Can't find ((

[Igorbek]

I've sent it via email.

I writing the .Net wrapper for libsass, so I compiled the sources with MS C++ compiler in CLR mode.
The error occured when source file specified by filename (in sass_compile_file), or if it specified by @import directive.

[emagnier]

I'm using Sassc on Windows, and with many files created by Visual Studio I get the same error: "invalid top-level expression".

I made the test with the latest versions of libsass and sassc.

Here is an example of a file that does not compile:
http://files.etiennemagnier.com/public/test-encoding.zip

Thanks,
Etienne.

[craigbarnes]

The UTF-8 BOM is 0xEF 0xBB 0xBF. No other BOM begins 0xEF, so a simple fix would be to check if byte 0 is 0xEF and if so, drop the first 3 bytes.

[emagnier]

Thanks Craigbarnes for your comment!

This problem prevents me from using Sassc on several of my projects, and unfortunately I don't have an enough good level in C++ to provide a fix.
I keep my fingers crossed hoping this issue will be solved soon ;-)

[craigbarnes]

If you're using Visual Studio, I think you can set the encoding to UTF-8 without signature to save without a BOM.

[emagnier]

Yes, but as the default files created by Visual Studio are with BOM, it will be dificult to ask all my team members to manually change the encoding each time they create a new scss file.
And if I change the encoding of the existing scss files, I will break the "compare" and "merge" features of our source control (TFS) with the previous versions & branches.

[akhleung]

Just check for those three bytes? No problem.

[emagnier]

Hi Aaron,
I know you are very busy, but are you going to have time to fix this one?
Because of this bug I still can't consider using LibSass on our projects on Windows.
Thanks.

[akhleung]

I'll work on this one right now.

[akhleung]

All right, I added checks for all of the BOMs listed on the Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark

Please let me know whether or not it works for you.

[emagnier]

I did a test with your latest commit, and all the encoding errors have disappeared.
A great thanks for your work, it's really appreciated! 👍

[techniq]

I ran into this issue today using gulp-sass/node-sass/libsass that was due to creating the .scss file in Visual Studio 2012, which created a UTF-8 encoded file. Opening the file in notepad and changing the encoding to ANSI solved the invalid top-level expression error for me.

[QuLogic]

The top-level expression is probably the BOM, so it sounds like gulp-sass/node-sass are using an older version of libsass. You might be able to save it as UTF-8-without-BOM and that might work. No guarantees that non-Latin characters might not be a problem without updating libsass though.

[mgreter]

This might have something to do with the pull request #283. IMO this change makes the parser to recognise the BOM as alpha characters and therefore seeing it as an expression? But I guess libsass should just "throw away" the BOM once it has determined there is one (this is also very true for imports, as you do not want the BOM to be inserted in the source document). But from the age of this bug I would have guessed that this has already been solved?

[jbutko]

Got this same error today. Found out I had a redundant expression in my gruntfile.js file: 'css/ie.css': 'css/ie.scss' Deleted this and now it works like a charm. So always double check if you are referencing only real files.