Sass: Parent selector

In Sass files, when a parent selector (&) is used in an inner selector, it's replaced with the corresponding outer selector.

For example,

.alert {
  // The parent selector can be used to add pseudo-classes to the outer
  // selector.
  &:hover {
    font-weight: bold;
  }

  // It can also be used to style the outer selector in a certain context, such
  // as a body set to use a right-to-left language.
  [dir=rtl] & {
    margin-left: 0;
    margin-right: 10px;
  }

  // You can even use it as an argument to pseudo-class selectors.
  :not(&) {
    opacity: 0.8;
  }
}