Consider adding ref property overloads in structs for those who have a crippling fear of unsafe

[Perksey]

[HurricanKai]

I beg you use in/out over ref

[Perksey]

For properties this isn't an option

[HurricanKai]

I'm sorry, but if properties in the title refer to the language construct, what is the current way? Are pointer properties the current way of doing this? (I've never seed a C# property in Silk so far)

[Perksey]

For example:

public struct InstanceCreateInfo
{
    public ApplicationInfo* PApplicationInfo;
    public ref ApplicationInfo PApplicationInfoRef => ...
}

However, now that I think about it, it may be better to generate alternative structs using this ref technique like ImGui.NET does instead of this.

[HurricanKai]

I'd argue both should be a property with a shared underlying field, also, then a ref property seems very reasonable, my apologies

[Perksey]

I'm pretty sure there's no good way to do this until dotnet/csharplang#1147 is in. Could compromise for Span overloads instead?

cc @JakenVeina

[HurricanKai]

We could store a pointer and convert to a ref?

[Perksey]

Ref properties can't have setters.

[HurricanKai]

https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/dotnet/api/system.runtime.compilerservices.unsafe.asref?view=netcore-3.1#System_Runtime_CompilerServices_Unsafe_AsRef__1_System_Void__

[Perksey]

The problem isn't that we can't convert pointers to refs, it's that the property overloads will only work one-way. For example, you won't be able to:

applicationInfo.PNextRef = ref _nextThing;

Because the C# language forbids ref properties having setters. However, this would work:

ref applicationInfo.PNextRef

But if you haven't assigned the pointer value already, this property would return Unsafe.NullRef

[HurricanKai]

Methods, maybe?

[Perksey]

Could do methods, yeah.