Properties: a.b.c = 3

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Ary Borenszweig" <ary at esperanto.org.ar> wrote in message 
news:h4su5p$2ctj$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>
>> C# shows us *A* solution. Doesn't mean we can't do one better.
>>
>> The whole point of properties is that, to the outside observer, they 
>> behave, as much as possible, like plain fields. Obviously this can't be 
>> done in all cases (like getting an int* from &myIntProp), but in this 
>> case:
>>
>> widget.sizeAsAStructField.width = 10; // Works
>> widget.sizeAsAStructProp.width = 10; // Doesn't work
>>
>> ...we absolutely can fix that even if C# doesn't.
>
> I don't understand your example. What's wrong with it? What doesn't work 
> as you expect and what is your expected result?
>
> In the first case, if you modify sizeAsAStructField.width, it's ok and 
> should compile, because you are modifying sizeAsAStructField itself, not a 
> copy of it. In C#:
>

Here's the problem (still in C#):

---------------------
public struct MyStruct
{
    public int x;
}

public class ClassWithProp
{
    // The whole point of properties is that the interface
    // for these two should work as similarly as possible.

    public MyStruct field;
    public MyStruct prop {get;set;}
}

static Main()
{
    ClassWithProp classWithProp = new ClassWithProp();

    // Works
    classWithProp.field.x = 10;

    // Doesn't currently work in either C# or D.
    // *But*, unlike "&field" vs "&prop", this prop-vs-field
    // inconsistency *is* easily fixable,
    // and therefore should be fixed.
    classWithProp.prop.x = 10;
}
---------------------