I can’t explain an issue I’ve run across. Basically I get a different answer if I use lambda syntax in a foreach loop than if I use it in a for loop. In the code below I register a delegate in a “dispatcher” class. I then later wrap the delegate on the way out in another delegate and return a list of these wrapped delegates. I then execute them. The expected output of executing the wrapped function list is 1,2. However I don’t see that when I combine a lambda and a foreach loop.
This is not the code that is causing the problem, but the simplest case I could make to reproduce it. I would prefer not to discuss use cases of this, I’m more curious as to why I get behavior I’m not expecting. If I use the foreach loop below with the lambda syntax it fails. If I use the new Action() syntax and a foreach it works, if I use the lambda syntax in a for loop it works. Can anyone explain what is going on here. This has me really stumped.
public class Holder
{
public Holder(int ID, Dispatcher disp)
{
this.ID = ID;
disp.Register(Something);
}
public int ID { get; set; }
private void Something(int test) { Console.WriteLine(ID.ToString()); }
}
public class Dispatcher
{
List<Action<int>> m_Holder = new List<Action<int>>();
public void Register(Action<int> func)
{
m_Holder.Add(func);
}
public List<Action<int>> ReturnWrappedList()
{
List<Action<int>> temp = new List<Action<int>>();
//for (int i = 0; i < m_Holder.Count; i++) //Works - gives 1, 2
//{
// var action = m_Holder[i];
// temp.Add(p => action(p));
//}
foreach (var action in m_Holder)
{
temp.Add(p => action(p)); //Fails - gives 2,2
//temp.Add(new Action<int>(action)); Works - gives 1,2
}
return temp;
}
}
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var disp = new Dispatcher();
var hold1 = new Holder(1, disp);
var hold2 = new Holder(2, disp);
disp.ReturnWrappedList().ForEach(p => p(1));
}
}
This is the infamous “closing over the loop variable” gotcha.