• Magnus Lie Hetland (25/25) Mar 01 2011 In Andrei's book, as well as in the Phobos source, there are property
• Lars T. Kyllingstad (24/56) Mar 01 2011 That is because @property is a relatively new feature. In D1, and until...
• Steven Schveighoffer (4/8) Mar 01 2011 It is most definitely a bug. Please file.
• Magnus Lie Hetland (5/17) Mar 02 2011 --

Magnus Lie Hetland <magnus hetland.org> writes:

In Andrei's book, as well as in the Phobos source, there are property 
getters that return refs, as in...

   property ref T front() {
      return _payload[0];
  }

... and code that uses this with simple assignments, such as:

  r.front = foo;

For some reason, I can't get this to work in my code :-/ DMD seems to 
insist that I add a setter as well (i.e.,  property T front(T val) { 
return _payload[0] = val; }).

On the other hand, I *do* get

  r.front() = foo;

to work. That works well even without  property, of course; and r.front 
fails even without  property.

Then, again, if I write both the getter (front()) and the setter 
(front(T)), that works even without  property (which, then, seems 
rather redundant?).

So ... I guess I have two questions:

1. What's the point of  property (when it seems I get the same 
functionality without it)?
2. How can I make r.front = foo work, when I only have r.front(), 
returning a ref (which seems like it is used in actual code)?

-- 
Magnus Lie Hetland
http://hetland.org

"Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet> writes:

On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:25:30 +0100, Magnus Lie Hetland wrote:

 In Andrei's book, as well as in the Phobos source, there are property
 getters that return refs, as in...
 
    property ref T front() {
       return _payload[0];
   }
 
 ... and code that uses this with simple assignments, such as:
 
   r.front = foo;
 
 For some reason, I can't get this to work in my code :-/ DMD seems to
 insist that I add a setter as well (i.e.,  property T front(T val) {
 return _payload[0] = val; }).
 
 On the other hand, I *do* get
 
   r.front() = foo;
 
 to work. That works well even without  property, of course; and r.front
 fails even without  property.
 
 Then, again, if I write both the getter (front()) and the setter
 (front(T)), that works even without  property (which, then, seems rather
 redundant?).
 
 So ... I guess I have two questions:
 
 1. What's the point of  property (when it seems I get the same
 functionality without it)?

That is because  property is a relatively new feature.  In D1, and until 
recently in D2, there was no such thing as  property.  The choice of 
whether to write

  x = s.foo();
  s.foo(x);

or

  x = s.foo;
  s.foo = x;

was completely up to the user.  The plan is for the compiler to enforce 
the first syntax for non- property functions and the latter syntax for 
 property functions.  I believe the reason this hasn't been implemented 
yet is that it will break a *lot* of code, so people are currently 
getting a chance to update their code base before it breaks.


 2. How can I make r.front = foo work, when I only have r.front(),
 returning a ref (which seems like it is used in actual code)?

I think this is a bug, but I'm not entirely sure.  Even though assignment 
doesn't work, this does:

  r.front++;

The same happens when you overload the indexing operator, []:

  struct S { ref int opIndex(int i) { ... } }

  S s;
  s[0]++;      // works
  s[0] = 123;  // fails

You have to define opIndexAssign() for the last line to work.

-Lars

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:

On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 07:19:21 -0500, Lars T. Kyllingstad  
<public kyllingen.nospamnet> wrote:

 On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:25:30 +0100, Magnus Lie Hetland wrote:

 2. How can I make r.front = foo work, when I only have r.front(),
 returning a ref (which seems like it is used in actual code)?

 I think this is a bug, but I'm not entirely sure.

It is most definitely a bug.  Please file.

-Steve

Magnus Lie Hetland <magnus hetland.org> writes:

On 2011-03-01 13:20:18 +0100, Steven Schveighoffer said:

 On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 07:19:21 -0500, Lars T. Kyllingstad 
 <public kyllingen.nospamnet> wrote:
 
 On Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:25:30 +0100, Magnus Lie Hetland wrote:
 
 2. How can I make r.front = foo work, when I only have r.front(),
 returning a ref (which seems like it is used in actual code)?

 
 I think this is a bug, but I'm not entirely sure.

 
 It is most definitely a bug.  Please file.

Done.

 -Steve

-- 
Magnus Lie Hetland
http://hetland.org