Why isn't the array lenght property an lvalue?

[Iain Buclaw]

On 7 April 2014 22:18, MrSmith <mrsmith33 at yandex.ru> wrote:
> On Monday, 7 April 2014 at 20:43:09 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 07 Apr 2014 16:30:13 -0400, MrSmith <mrsmith33 at yandex.ru> wrote:
>>
>>> On Monday, 7 April 2014 at 19:58:21 UTC, Jeroen Bollen wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Monday, 7 April 2014 at 19:56:38 UTC, MrSmith wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, 7 April 2014 at 19:23:45 UTC, Jeroen Bollen wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Monday, 7 April 2014 at 19:13:31 UTC, Jeroen Bollen wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> When I have myarray.length, why isn't that considered an lvalue, and
>>>>>>> as a result, why cannot I get a pointer to it?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It seems kinda dumb, I understand it cannot be changed manually, but
>>>>>>> surely you should be able to get a const(type)* from it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well type would be ulong, so const(ulong)*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Array length is size_t which is uint on x86 and ulong on x86_64.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Alright, but why can't you get a pointer to it?
>>>
>>>
>>> I've tried, but no luck here
>>> http://dpaste.dzfl.pl/be526902ef4f
>>
>>
>
> Cool! So, it is not a property function but actual size_t? How would it grow
> then?

The compiler detects the pattern and invokes a runtime call to set the
new array length.  If the new size is greater than the current
allocated pool for the array, then it's realloc'd on the GC.