How to: Execute Expression Trees

This topic shows you how to execute an expression tree. Executing an expression tree may return a value, or it may just perform an action such as calling a method.

Only expression trees that represent lambda expressions can be executed. Expression trees that represent lambda expressions are of type LambdaExpression or Expression<(Of <(TDelegate>)>). To execute these expression trees, call the Compile method to create an executable delegate, and then invoke the delegate.

Note:
If the type of the delegate is not known, that is, the lambda expression is of type LambdaExpression and not Expression<(Of <(TDelegate>)>), you must call the DynamicInvoke method on the delegate instead of invoking it directly.

If an expression tree does not represent a lambda expression, you can create a new lambda expression that has the original expression tree as its body, by calling the Lambda<(Of <(TDelegate>)>)(Expression, IEnumerable<(Of <(ParameterExpression>)>)) method. Then, you can execute the lambda expression as described earlier in this section.

 Example

The following code example demonstrates how to execute an expression tree that represents raising a number to a power by creating a lambda expression and executing it. The result, which represents the number raised to the power, is displayed.

 

// The expression tree to execute. BinaryExpression be = Expression.Power(Expression.Constant(2D), Expression.Constant(3D)); // Create a lambda expression. Expression<Func<double>> le = Expression.Lambda<Func<double>>(be); // Compile the lambda expression. Func<double> compiledExpression = le.Compile(); // Execute the lambda expression. double result = compiledExpression(); // Display the result. Console.WriteLine(result); // This code produces the following output: // 8