Properties: a.b.c = 3

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Chad J" <chadjoan at __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:h4oku0$uel$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Daniel Keep wrote:
>>
>> Maybe the compiler could rewrite the above as:
>>
>> auto t = a.b;
>> t.c = 3;
>> a.b = t;
>>
>
> I'd always suspected C# properties did something like this, though it's
> been so long since I've used C# now that I'm wondering if it's bad memory.
>

Same here, so I just did a little test in Visual C# 2008 Express. Turns out 
that rewriting *is* exactly what C# does.

Code:
--------------------------------------
using System;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        class Rect
        {
            public int width;
            public int height;

            public Rect(int width, int height)
            {
                this.width = width;
                this.height = height;
            }
        }

        class Widget
        {
            public Rect size { get; set; }
            public Widget()
            {
                size = new Rect(50,50);
            }
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Widget wid = new Widget();

            Console.Out.WriteLine("width:  "+wid.size.width);
            Console.Out.WriteLine("height: "+wid.size.height);

            wid.size.width = 100;

            Console.Out.WriteLine("width:  "+wid.size.width);
            Console.Out.WriteLine("height: "+wid.size.height);

            Console.ReadLine(); // So I can *read* the dang output
        }
    }
}
--------------------------------------

Compiles successfully.

Output:
--------------------------------------
width:  50
height: 50
width:  100
height: 50
--------------------------------------