D Language Foundation Monthly Meeting Summary for December 2022

[Walter Bright]

On 1/28/2023 5:04 AM, Johan wrote:
> Is there a document describing cases where removal of `@property` does not lead 
> to an error but does lead to a change in behavior of code?

No.

> We are considering a blanket removal of 3000+ instances of `@property`. The 
> resulting compile errors I can fix (unless they happen in speculative 
> instantiations, they may be harder to track down), but I am especially worried 
> about changes in behavior that do not lead to compile warnings/errors.

It's been a while, but I think the only difference is if you're taking the 
address of a property. Without the @property, the address of the function will 
be taken. With @property, the address of the return value will be taken.

This will affect inference, such as `auto x = &s.foo;`

That will likely lead to type mismatch errors further down the line, but I can't 
guarantee it.

The best approach I can recommend is to remove the @propertys a handful at a 
time, checking them into git, and running your test suite to check for any 
failures. This will make `git bisect` invaluable in tracking down the cause of 
any errors that are missed by the test suite.