Question

I’ve noticed some examples of things that work and don’t work when dealing with lambda functions and anonymous delegates in C#. What’s going on here?

class Test : Control {
    void testInvoke() {
        // The best overloaded method match for 'Invoke' has some invalid arguments
        Invoke(doSomething);

        // Cannot convert anonymous method to type 'System.Delegate' because it is not a delegate type
        Invoke(delegate { doSomething(); });

        // OK
        Invoke((Action)doSomething);

        // OK
        Invoke((Action)delegate { doSomething(); });

        // Cannot convert lambda expression to type 'System.Delegate' because it is not a delegate type
        Invoke(() => doSomething());

        // OK
        Invoke((Action)(() => doSomething()));
    }

    void testQueueUserWorkItem() {
        // The best overloaded method match for 'QueueUserWorkItem' has some invalid arguments
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(doSomething);

        // OK
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(delegate { doSomething(); });

        // The best overloaded method match for 'QueueUserWorkItem' has some invalid arguments
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem((Action)doSomething);

        // No overload for 'doSomething' matches delegate 'WaitCallback'
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem((WaitCallback)doSomething);

        // OK
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem((WaitCallback)delegate { doSomething(); });

        // Delegate 'WaitCallback' does not take '0' arguments
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(() => doSomething());

        // OK
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(state => doSomething());
    }

    void doSomething() {
        // ...
    }
}

Well that’s a lot of examples. I guess my questions are the following:

1. Why does Invoke always refuse a lambda function or an anonymous delegate, yet ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem does just fine?

2. What the heck does “Cannot convert anonymous method to type ‘System.Delegate’ because it is not a delegate type” mean anyway?

3. Why does ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem accept an anonymous delegate with no parameters, but not a lambda expression with no parameters?

Answer 1

1. ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem has a specific delegate in its signature; Invoke just has Delegate. Lambda expressions and anonymous methods can only be converted to a specific delegate type.

2. It’s just a bad error message. It means, “I don’t know exactly which delegate type you’re trying to convert to.”

3. You’re using an anonymous method without a parameter list at all which can be converted to any delegate type which doesn’t use out/ref parameters. If you tried delegate() { ... } (i.e. an explicitly empty parameter list) then it wouldn’t work. This “I don’t care about parameters” ability of anonymous methods is the only feature they have which lambda expressions don’t.

It’s easiest to demonstrate all of this in the context of simple assignments, IMO:

// Doesn't work: no specific type
Delegate d = () => Console.WriteLine("Bang");

// Fine: we know the exact type to convert to
Action a = () => Console.WriteLine("Yay");

// Doesn't work: EventHandler isn't parameterless; we've specified 0 parameters
EventHandler e1 = () => Console.WriteLine("Bang");
EventHandler e2 = delegate() { Console.WriteLine("Bang again"); };

// Works: we don't care about parameter lists
EventHandler e = delegate { Console.WriteLine("Lambdas can't do this"); };