Autoprefixer Core

Autoprefixer is a tool to parse CSS and add vendor prefixes using values from Can I Use.

This is core package to build Autoprefixer plugin for some environment (like grunt‑autoprefixer). For end-user documentation, features and plugins list visit main Autoprefixer project.

Sponsored by Evil Martians. Based on PostCSS framework.

Quick Example

Write your CSS rules without vendor prefixes (in fact, forget about them entirely):

:fullscreen a {
    transition: transform 1s;
}

Process your CSS by Autoprefixer:

var autoprefixer = require('autoprefixer-core');
var prefixed = autoprefixer.process(css).css;

It will use the data based on current browser popularity and property support to apply prefixes for you:

:-webkit-full-screen a {
    -webkit-transition: -webkit-transform 1s;
            transition: transform 1s;
}
:-moz-full-screen a {
    transition: transform 1s;
}
:-ms-fullscreen a {
    transition: transform 1s;
}
:fullscreen a {
    -webkit-transition: -webkit-transform 1s;
            transition: transform 1s;
}

Usage

To process your CSS you need to make 2 steps:

Build processor for your options and browsers supported in your project.
Process CSS throw this processor.

Function autoprefixer(options) returns new processor object:

var processor = autoprefixer({ browsers: ['> 1%', 'IE 7'], cascade: false });

There are 2 options:

browsers (array): list of browsers, which are supported in your project.

You can directly specify browser version (like iOS 7) or use selections (like last 2 version or > 5%). Full browsers documentation is available on main Autoprefixer page.

By default, Autoprefixer uses '> 1%', 'last 2 versions', 'Firefox ESR', 'Opera 12.1'. You can get current default list from autoprefixer.default property.
cascade (boolean): should Autoprefixer uses Visual Cascade, if CSS will be uncompressed.

Processor object had:

.process(css, opts) method, which will add prefixes to css.
.info() method, which returns debug information: which browsers are selected and which properties will be prefixed
.postcss property returns PostCSS processor to use in chain with other PostCSS processors.

You can use processor object to process several CSS files to increase perfomance.

There are autoprefixer.process(), autoprefixer.info() and autoprefixer.postcss shortcuts, which use default browsers and options.

CSS Processing

Method process(css, opts) from Autoprefixer processor is a PostCSS’s method.

You must set from and to options with file names to generates corrects source maps and useful error messages.

Options:

from (path): file path to origin CSS files.
to (path): file path to future CSS file, which will contain processed CSS with prefixes.
safe (boolean): enables Safe Mode in PostCSS. By default false.
map contains options for source maps:
- inline: true to force inline map to CSS annotation comment. You can shortcut map { inline: true } to map: 'inline'.
- prev (string or object): map content from previous processing step (like Sass compilation).
If you set map: false, PostCSS will remove source map.

You can read more about the source map options in PostCSS documentation.

PostCSS Chain

You parse CSS only once and then process it through array of PostCSS processors.

For example, you can use gulp-postcss:

var postcss    = require('gulp-postcss');
var sourcemaps = require('gulp-sourcemaps');

gulp.task('css', function () {
    var processors = [
        require('autoprefixer')('last 1 version'),
        require('css-mqpacker'),
        require('csswring')
     ];
     return gulp.src('./src/style.css')
        .pipe(sourcemaps.init())
        .pipe(postcss(processors))
        .pipe(sourcemaps.write('.'))
        .pipe(gulp.dest('./dest'));
});

Safe Mode

PostCSS has a special safe mode to parse broken CSS. If you set the safe: true option to the process method, it will parse a { as a {}:

autoprefixer.process('a {');                 // will throw “Unclosed block”
autoprefixer.process('a {', { safe: true }); // will process as a closed block

It is useful for legacy code when using several hacks, or interactive tools with live input, like Autoprefixer demo.

Debug

You can check which browsers are selected and which properties will be prefixed:

info = autoprefixer({ browsers: ['last 1 version'] }).info();
console.log(info);