Sass - Converting Hex to RGBa for background opacity

I have the following Sass mixin, which is a half complete modification of an RGBa example:

@mixin background-opacity($color, $opacity: .3) {
    background: rgb(200, 54, 54); /* The Fallback */
    background: rgba(200, 54, 54, $opacity);
} 

I have applied $opacity ok, but now I am a stuck with the $color part. The colors I will be sending into the mixin will be HEX not RGB.

My example use will be:

element {
    @include background-opacity(#333, .5);
}

How can I use HEX values within this mixin?

The rgba() function can accept a single hex color as well decimal RGB values. For example, this would work just fine:

@mixin background-opacity($color, $opacity: 0.3) {
    background: $color; /* The Fallback */
    background: rgba($color, $opacity);
}

element {
     @include background-opacity(#333, 0.5);
}

If you ever need to break the hex color into RGB components, though, you can use the red(), green(), and blue() functions to do so:

$red: red($color);
$green: green($color);
$blue: blue($color);

background: rgb($red, $green, $blue); /* same as using "background: $color" */

There is a builtin mixin: transparentize($color, $amount);

background-color: transparentize(#F05353, .3);

The amount should be between 0 to 1;

Official Sass Documentation (Module: Sass::Script::Functions)

Use the SASS rgba() function.

rgba($color, $alpha)

For example,

rgba(#00aaff, 0.5) // Output: rgba(0, 170, 255, 0.5)

An example using your own variables:

$my-color: #00aaff;
$my-opacity: 0.5;

.my-element {
  color: rgba($my-color, $my-opacity);
}

// Output:
// .my-element {
//   color: rgba(0, 170, 255, 0.5);
// }

you can try this solution, is the best... url(github)

// Transparent Background
// From: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6902944/sass-mixin-for-background-transparency-back-to-ie8

// Extend this class to save bytes
.transparent-background {
  background-color: transparent;
  zoom: 1;
}

// The mixin
@mixin transparent($color, $alpha) {
  $rgba: rgba($color, $alpha);
  $ie-hex-str: ie-hex-str($rgba);
  @extend .transparent-background;
  background-color: $rgba;
  filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#{$ie-hex-str},endColorstr=#{$ie-hex-str});
}

// Loop through opacities from 90 to 10 on an alpha scale
@mixin transparent-shades($name, $color) {
  @each $alpha in 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 {
    .#{$name}-#{$alpha} {
      @include transparent($color, $alpha / 100);
    }
  }
}

// Generate semi-transparent backgrounds for the colors we want
@include transparent-shades('dark', #000000);
@include transparent-shades('light', #ffffff);

If you need to mix colour from variable and alpha transparency, and with solutions that include rgba() function you get an error like

      background-color: rgba(#{$color}, 0.3);
                       ^
      $color: #002366 is not a color.
   ╷
   │       background-color: rgba(#{$color}, 0.3);
   │                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Something like this might be useful.

$meeting-room-colors: (
  Neumann: '#002366',
  Turing: '#FF0000',
  Lovelace: '#00BFFF',
  Shared: '#00FF00',
  Chilling: '#FF1493',
);
$color-alpha: EE;

@each $name, $color in $meeting-room-colors {

  .#{$name} {

     background-color: #{$color}#{$color-alpha};

  }

}