@property - take it behind the woodshed and shoot it?

[Rob T]

On Sunday, 27 January 2013 at 01:11:05 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 01:15:29AM +0100, Rob T wrote:
>> We can almost implement properties as a regular struct
> [...]
>
> You do it like this:
>
> 	import std.stdio;
>
> 	struct IntProp {
> 		int __impl;
>
> 		@property /* <-- ah, the irony! */ int value() {
> 			return __impl + 123;
> 		}
> 		alias value this;	// watch this magic
>
> 		void opAssign(int val) {
> 			__impl = val - 123;
> 		}
> 	}
>
> 	struct S {
> 		IntProp prop;
> 	}
>
> 	void main() {
> 		S s;
> 		writeln(s.prop);
> 		s.prop = 321;
> 		writeln(s.prop);
> 	}
>
>
> T

Ah cool! You don't really need @property however if we adopt the 
optional () unless that's to be enforced.

The really nice thing about this, is we can return the struct as 
a ref, and it still works, and also take the address of the 
struct and it continues to work.

Even better I can add more member functions to it and expand on 
what it can do. The "property as a function" approach is far more 
limiting and has issues, such as ref returns and taking the 
address.

Anyone know what's missing or what won't work with this approach?

--rt