Introduction to delegates and events in C#

Delegates provide a late binding mechanism in .NET. Late Binding means that you create an algorithm where the caller also supplies at least one method that implements part of the algorithm.

For example, consider sorting a list of stars in an astronomy application. You may choose to sort those stars by their distance from the earth, or the magnitude of the star, or their perceived brightness.

In all those cases, the Sort() method does essentially the same thing: arranges the items in the list based on some comparison. The code that compares two stars is different for each of the sort orderings.

These kinds of solutions have been used in software for half a century. The C# language delegate concept provides first class language support, and type safety around the concept.

As you'll see later in this series, the C# code you write for algorithms like this is type safe. The compiler ensures that the types match for arguments and return types.

Function pointers support similar scenarios, where you need more control over the calling convention. The code associated with a delegate is invoked using a virtual method added to a delegate type. Using function pointers, you can specify different conventions.

Language Design Goals for Delegates

The language designers enumerated several goals for the feature that eventually became delegates.

The team wanted a common language construct that could be used for any late binding algorithms. Delegates enable developers to learn one concept, and use that same concept across many different software problems.

Second, the team wanted to support both single and multicast method calls. (Multicast delegates are delegates that chain together multiple method calls. You'll see examples later in this series.)

The team wanted delegates to support the same type safety that developers expect from all C# constructs.

Finally, the team recognized an event pattern is one specific pattern where delegates, or any late binding algorithm, is useful. The team wanted to ensure the code for delegates could provide the basis for the .NET event pattern.

The result of all that work was the delegate and event support in C# and .NET.

The remaining articles in this series will cover language features, library support, and common idioms used when you work with delegates and events. You'll learn about:

• The delegate keyword and what code it generates.
• The features in the System.Delegate class, and how those features are used.
• How to create type-safe delegates.
• How to create methods that can be invoked through delegates.
• How to work with delegates and events by using lambda expressions.
• How delegates become one of the building blocks for LINQ.
• How delegates are the basis for the .NET event pattern, and how they're different.

Let's get started.

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