Delegates, Events, and Lambdas

1. Specifically speaking, a delegate object maintains three important pieces of information:

• The address of the method on which it makes calls
• The arguments (if any) of this method
• The return value (if any) of this method

 

2. When the C# compiler processes delegate types, it automatically generates a sealed class deriving from System.MulticastDelegate. This class (in conjunction with its base class, System.Delegate) provides the necessary infrastructure for the delegate to hold onto a list of methods to be invoked at a later time.

 

3. C# delegate definition results in a sealed class with three compiler-generated methods whose parameter and return types are based on the delegate’s declaration. The following pseudo-code approximates the basic pattern:

// This is only pseudo-code! 	 
public sealed class DelegateName : System.MulticastDelegate 	 
{ 	 
	public DelegateName (object target, uint functionAddress); 	 
	public delegateReturnValue Invoke(allDelegateInputRefAndOutParams); 	 
	public IAsyncResult BeginInvoke(allDelegateInputRefAndOutParams, 	 
	AsyncCallback cb, object state); 	 
	public delegateReturnValue EndInvoke(allDelegateRefAndOutParams, 	 
	IAsyncResult result); 	 
}