Renderer.GetMaterialCount()

I have a loop that sets per-material MaterialPropertyBlocks like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. for (int i = 0; i < materialCount; ++i)
2. {
3.     renderer.GetPropertyBlock(_propBlock, i);
4.     _propBlock.SetFloat(_propertyId, propertyValue);
5.     renderer.SetPropertyBlock(_propBlock, i);
6. }
7.  

What's the correct way to get the material count?

renderer.sharedMaterials.Length

allocates memory for the array every time you call it.

renderer.GetSharedMaterials(list)

is slow because of the unnecessary copying and the list might have to reallocate memory as well.

There is a

Renderer.GetMaterialCount()

method but it is private. You can call it via reflection but that allocates memory as well - presumably to auto-box the return value. Calling it via reflection is also much slower than renderer.sharedMaterials.Length.

Did I miss something here?