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Asked: 2026-05-25T23:21:39+00:00

I’m creating a framework that contains a wrapper around a library (specifically SharpBrake )

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I’m creating a framework that contains a wrapper around a library (specifically SharpBrake) that performs all interaction with SharpBrake via reflection so there’s no hard dependency on the library to 3rd parties of my framework.

If 3rd parties of my framework wants to use SharpBrake, they can just stuff the SharpBrake.dll into the bin folder, but if they don’t, they can just forget about it. If my framework had explicit references to SharpBrake types, users of my framework would get exceptions during runtime of SharpBrake.dll missing, which I don’t want.

So, my wrapper first loads SharpBrake.dll from disk, finds the AirbrakeClient type, and stores a delegate pointing to the AirbrakeClient.Send(AirbrakeNotice) method in a private field. My problem, however, is that since the Send() method takes an AirbrakeNotice object and I can’t reference the AirbrakeNotice object directly, I need to somehow convert the Send() method to an Action<object>.

I have a strong feeling this isn’t possible, but I want to explore all options before settling on exposing Delegate and using DynamicInvoke(), which I assume is far from optimal, performance-wise. What I would love to do is the following:

Type clientType = exportedTypes.FirstOrDefault(type => type.Name == "AirbrakeClient");
Type noticeType = exportedTypes.FirstOrDefault(type => type.Name == "AirbrakeNotice");
MethodInfo sendMethod = clientType.GetMethod("Send", new[] { noticeType });
object client = Activator.CreateInstance(clientType);
Type actionType = Expression.GetActionType(noticeType);
Delegate sendMethodDelegate = Delegate.CreateDelegate(actionType, client, sendMethod);

// This fails with an InvalidCastException:
Action<object> sendAction = (Action<object>)sendMethodDelegate;

However, this fails with the following exception:

System.InvalidCastException: Unable to cast object of type ‘System.Action`1[SharpBrake.Serialization.AirbrakeNotice]’ to type ‘System.Action`1[System.Object]’.

Obviously, because sendMethodDelegate is an Action<AirbrakeNotice> and not an Action<object>. Since I can’t mention AirbrakeNotice in my code, I’m forced to do this:

Action<object> sendAction = x => sendMethodDelegate.DynamicInvoke(x);

or just exposing the Delegate sendMethodDelegate directly. Is this possible? I know that there’s chance of getting into situations where the object can be of a different type than AirbrakeNotice which would be bad, but seeing how much you can mess up with reflection anyway, I’m hoping there’s a loophole somewhere.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    If you don’t need below C# 4 support you can get much greater performance using the dynamic vs DynamicInvoke.

    Action<dynamic> sendAction = x => sendMethodDelegate(x);

    Actually I guess you wouldn’t even need the above if you can use dynamic, because it would increase performance and simplify everything if you just did:

    Type clientType = exportedTypes.FirstOrDefault(type => type.Name == "AirbrakeClient");
dynamic client = Activator.CreateInstance(clientType);

...
client.Send(anAirbrakeNotice);

    But if you need to support .net 3.5 jon skeets answer with expression trees is definitely the way to go.

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