http://www.d-programming-language.org/property.html
@property makes it so that the function is used syntactically as a variable
rather than a function. And while it's not currently enforced, eventually, you
will _have_ to use property functions with the variable syntax. For instance,
empty on ranges is marked with @property:
assert(range.empty);
You could currently do
assert(empty(range));
but eventually that will be illegal. Property functions allow you to have
public member variables become functions (or functions become public member
variables) without having to change the code which uses them. They're
generally used instead of getters and setters.
In this particular case, the property function returns a ref, so it's both a
getter and a setter.
- Jonathan M Davis
Thanks for the reply Davis.
With the getter/setter method you don't have much control, like knowing
what value it being set to at the method definition (could with 'ref
auto xpos( int value ) { ... return m_xpos; }' :-/). And having two
methods, one for getter and one for setter, you can't do stuff like
'xpos++;'
- Joel Christensen
