Given a CSS file the script generates an HTML preview of all the CSS definitions by recursively drilling down the chain of nested classes, ids and tag names. Rules with `position: absolute|fixed|sticky` are wrapped into `iframe` elements in order to avoid overlap. 

The output goes to stdout since I wanted to avoid keeping storing too much data in memory. Content that goes inside iframes is printed first to a temporary buffer rather than stdout because that text need to be html-escaped.

Would be interested to get feedback on:

 - performance and efficiency (CPU, memory): is there anything inherently inefficient/slow with the chosen approach that can be optimised?
 - code organisation
 - obvious (or subtle) code smells
 - naming and legibility
 - possible criteria to check correctness or well-formedness of the generated output



<!-- language: lang-python --> 

    #!/usr/bin/env python3
    #
    # Generates an HTML file for previewing all styles defined in a CSS file
    #
    # dependencies: cssutils
    # USAGE:
    #     css_preview_generator.py style.css > preview.html
    import html
    import io
    import sys
    
    import cssutils
    
    image_placeholder = "data:image/svg+xml;charset=UTF-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' width='300' height='150' viewBox='0 0 300 150'%3E%3Crect fill='yellow' width='300' height='150'/%3E%3Ctext fill='rgba(0,0,0,0.5)' x='50%25' y='50%25' text-anchor='middle'%3E300×150%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E"
    
    
    def render(s, out):
        if out and not out.closed:
            return print(s, end='', file=out)
        else:
            print(s, flush=True)
    
    
    def down_the_rabbit_hole(chunks, full_selector, out=None):
        if len(chunks):
            chunk = chunks.pop(0)
            render_open_tag(chunk, out)
            down_the_rabbit_hole(chunks, full_selector, out)
            render_close_tag(chunk, out)
        else:
            render(full_selector, out)
    
    
    prefix_map = {
        '.': 'class',
        '#': 'id'
    }
    
    
    def extract_class_id(defn, extracted_attrs=''):
        try:
            for prefix in prefix_map.keys():
                if prefix in defn:
                    items = defn.split(prefix)
                    value = ' '.join(items[1:])
                    # return a tuple of (tagname, 'class="bla blu"') or (tagname, 'id="abc"')
                    tag = items[0]
                    if any(suffix in tag for suffix in prefix_map.keys()):
                        return extract_class_id(tag, f'{prefix_map[prefix]}="{value}"')
                    else:
                        return items[0], f'{extracted_attrs} {prefix_map[prefix]}="{value}"'
        except Exception as e:
            print(e, file=sys.stderr)
    
        return defn, ''
    
    
    def render_open_tag(definition, out):
        if definition.startswith(('.', '#')):
            _, class_or_id = extract_class_id(definition)
            render(f'<div {class_or_id}>', out)
        else:
            if definition == 'a' or definition.startswith(('a.', 'a#')):
                tag, class_or_id = extract_class_id(definition)
                render(f'''<a {class_or_id} href="#">''', out)
    
            elif definition == 'img' or definition.startswith(('img.','img#')):
                render(f'<img src="{image_placeholder}" alt="[image]">', out)
            else:
                tag, class_or_id = extract_class_id(definition)
                render(f'<{tag} {class_or_id}>', out)
    
    
    def render_close_tag(definition, out):
        if definition.startswith(('.', '#')):
            render('</div>', out)
        else:
            if definition == 'a' or definition.startswith(('a.', 'a#')):
                render(f'⚓️ {definition}</a>', out)
            else:
                tag, _ = extract_class_id(definition)
                render(f'</{tag}>', out)
    
    
    if __name__ == '__main__':
    
        if len(sys.argv) == 1 or sys.argv[1] in (('-h', '--help')):
            print(f'Usage: {sys.argv[0]} style.css > preview.html')
            sys.exit(-1)
    
        already_seen = []
        css_file = sys.argv[1]
        sheet = cssutils.parseFile(css_file)
        print(f'''<!DOCTYPE html>
    <html lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <title>CSS preview: {css_file}</title>
        <link href="{css_file}" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
    </head>
    <body>
    ''')
        selectors_requiring_iframe = []
        # build a list of absolute & fixed rules
        for rule in sheet:
            if isinstance(rule, cssutils.css.CSSStyleRule):
                position = getattr(rule.style, 'position', None)
    
                if position in ('fixed', 'absolute', 'sticky'):
                    for single_selector in rule.selectorList:  # type: cssutils.css.Selector
                        selectors_requiring_iframe.append(single_selector.selectorText)
    
        # deduplicate list
        selectors_requiring_iframe = list(dict.fromkeys(selectors_requiring_iframe))
    
        for rule in sheet:
            if isinstance(rule, cssutils.css.CSSStyleRule):
                selectors: cssutils.css.SelectorList = getattr(rule, 'selectorList', [])
                full_selectors_text = rule.selectorText
                print(f'Selectors: {full_selectors_text}', file=sys.stderr)
    
                for single_selector in selectors:  # type: cssutils.css.Selector
    
                    current_selector_text = single_selector.selectorText
                    if not single_selector or current_selector_text.startswith(('html', 'body')):
                        continue
    
                    # 1. convert '>' to space
                    # 2.  '~' '*' '+' and '[]' (not supported, ignoring them, convert to space, breaks semantics FIXME)
                    for c in '>*~+':
                        if c in current_selector_text:
                            current_selector_text = current_selector_text.replace(c, ' ')
    
                    for c in ':[':
                        if c in current_selector_text:
                            current_selector_text = current_selector_text.split(c)[0]
    
                    if current_selector_text in already_seen:
                        continue
                    else:
                        already_seen.append(current_selector_text)
    
                    position = getattr(rule.style, 'position', None)
    
                    # if current selector is a child of an absolute/fixed rule then also wrap it in an iframe
                    matching_abs_parents = [sel for sel in selectors_requiring_iframe if sel in current_selector_text]
    
                    need_iframe = position in ('fixed', 'absolute', 'sticky') or len(matching_abs_parents)
    
                    out = None
                    if need_iframe:
                        print(
                            f'''<iframe style="border:1px dotted #acad9e;" width="400" height="300" srcdoc="{html.escape(f'<html><head><link href="{css_file}" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/></head><body style="background:#f6f4ee">')}''',
                            end='')
                        out = io.StringIO()
    
                    print(f'\t{current_selector_text}', file=sys.stderr)
                    down_the_rabbit_hole(current_selector_text.split(), full_selectors_text, out)
    
                    if need_iframe:
                        print(html.escape(out.getvalue()), end='')
                        out.close()
                        print('"></iframe>')
    print('''
    </body>
    </html>''')


A copy of the script is [here][1].


  [1]: https://github.com/glowinthedark/css_stylesheet_preview_generator/blob/master/css_preview_generator.py