Question

I am trying to get my head around, what happens here ? What sort of code does the compiler produce?

public static void vc()
{
    var listActions = new List<Action>();

    foreach (int i in Enumerable.Range(1, 10))
    {
        listActions.Add(() => Console.WriteLine(i));
    }

    foreach (Action action in listActions)
    {
        action();
    }
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{ 
  vc();
}

output:
10
10
..
10

According to this, a new instance of ActionHelper would be created for every iteration. So in that case, I would assume it should print 1..10.
Can someone give me some pseudo code of what the compiler is doing here ?

Thanks.

Answer 1

In this line

 listActions.Add(() => Console.WriteLine(i));

the variable i, is captured, or if you wish, created a pointer to the memory location of that variable. That means that every delegate got a pointer to that memory location. After this loop execution:

foreach (int i in Enumerable.Range(1, 10))
{
    listActions.Add(() => Console.WriteLine(i));
}

for obvious reasons i is 10, so the memory content that all pointers present in Action(s) are pointing, becomes 10.

In other words, i is captured.

By the way, should note, that according to Eric Lippert, this “strange” behaviour would be resolved in C# 5.0.

So in the C# 5.0 your program would print as expected:

1,2,3,4,5...10

EDIT:

Can not find Eric Lippert’s post on subject, but here is another one:

Closure in a Loop Revisited