property aliases to existing functions

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday, September 25, 2011 00:00:33 Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
> I'm guessing the following is an accepts-invalid bug:
> 
> void test(int) {}
> void main() { test = 4; }
> 
> Anyway, if/when the above stops being legal I'd be nice if I could
> create property functions using aliases. Something like this:
> 
> struct Bar
> {
>     int getFoo() { return 0; }
>     void setFoo(int i) { }
> 
>     @property alias getFoo foo;
>     @property alias setFoo foo;
> }
> 
> void main()
> {
>     Bar bar;
>     bar.foo = 4;
> }
> 
> I'm not sure if this is *actually* making "foo" a property right now
> or if DMD completely ignores the property keyword there, it's hard to
> tell since regular functions already act as properties.
> 
> But do you think this code should be legal and maybe create properties
> like that? It sure looks handy (admittedly it's not a to-die-for
> feature, just a convenience when porting code).

Actually, there was code like that in core.time until it was pointed out that 
it didn't actually work. As I understand it (though I haven't tested it), 
pretty much _no_ attributes have an affect on aliases (including deprecated, 
which could be a problem). So, yeah. I'd like for this to work, but it 
doesn't.

- Jonathan M Davis