Which file extension is associated with cascading style sheets?

The file extension associated with cascading style sheets is .css. This standard file format is widely recognized and used in web development to apply styling to HTML documents. CSS allows web developers to control the layout, colors, fonts, and overall aesthetics of a web page, enabling the separation of content from design.

While there are other formats mentioned, such as .less and .scss, these are actually extensions of CSS and are used in conjunction with preprocessors. They allow for more advanced features like variables, nested rules, and functions, but they ultimately compile down to standard .css files for browsers to interpret. The .xml file extension, on the other hand, is associated with markup languages for data representation and does not pertain to styling web pages. Therefore, the .css file extension is the fundamental type specifically designated for cascading style sheets.