Sass @each with multiple variables

Just came across this, have the answer for you. In Sass, you can actually have a multidimensional list, so instead of constructing individual variables, you'd create one variable to hold them all, then loop over them:

$zoo: puma black, sea-slug green, egret brown, salamander red;

@each $animal in $zoo {
  .#{nth($animal, 1)}-icon {
    background-color: nth($animal, 2);
  }
}

You can have multidimensional lists just like you would have single dimensional lists as long as each nested dimension is separated in a different manner (in our case, commas and spaces).

UPDATE Oct 24, 2013

In Sass 3.3, there is a new data type called maps which are a hashed set of items. With this, we can rewrite my previous answer in the following way to much more closely resemble the desired result:

$zoo: ("puma": black, "sea-slug": green, "egret": brown, "salamander": red);

@each $animal, $color in $zoo {
    .#{$animal}-icon {
        background-color: $color;
    }
}

You can see this in action over at SassMeister

I'm in the same boat (beginner to Sass/Compass) and had to do something similar. Here's what I came up with, using nested lists:

$flash_types: (success #d4ffd4) (error #ffd5d1);

@each $flash_def in $flash_types {
    $type: nth($flash_def, 1);
    $colour: nth($flash_def, 2);

    &.#{$type} {
        background-color: $colour;
        background-image: url(../images/#{$type}.png);
    }
}

It's not the most elegant solution but it should work if you can't find anything else. Hope it helps! I'd appreciate a better method too :)

Another way I used if anyone needs it:

$i:0;
@each $name in facebook, twitter, google_plus, instagram, youtube, pinterest {
    $i:$i+1;
}

This functionality is supported for Sass 3.3.0 and above (I just updated from 3.2.14 to 3.4.4 in order to use it).

@each $animal, $color in (puma, black), (sea-slug, green), (egret, brown), (salamander, red) {
  .#{$animal}-icon {
    background-color: $color;
  }
}

I'd recommend to check the changelog for backwards incompatibilities, if you're updating Sass.

Sass reference for multiple assignments with @each