Question

D is a dictionary whose entry values are of Type T

What I’m attempting to do is have a delegate like “Serializer” below that I can invoke on an instance of T, such as “Entry.Value” below.

Please see the “return Entry…” line below for my wishful thinking.

Is this possible?

If so, is it a bad idea?

Public Delegate Function Serializer(Of T)() As Byte()

Function SerializeDictionary_String_Object(Of T)(ByRef D As Dictionary(Of String, T), ByVal ObjSerializer As Serializer(Of T)) As Byte()

  for each Entry in D
    return Entry.Value.ObjSerializer()
    exit for
  next

End Function

Answer 1

In your Serializer delegate, you’re not using T anywhere. You should do something like this:

Public Delegate Function Serializer(Of T)(Byval obj As T) As Byte()

Or better yet, just use the built in Func delegate.

Function SerializeDictionary_String_Object(Of T)(ByRef D As Dictionary(Of String, T), ByVal ObjSerializer As Func(Of T, Byte()) As Byte()

Then call it by doing:

ObjSerializer(Entry.Value)

I’m extremely rusty at VB so my apologies if I missed an underscore or something. 🙂