Question

Why the copyOfDelegate is a copy of the original delegate, instead of the reference copy of the original one?

    public class DelegateTester
    {
        public delegate void PrintDelegate();

        public PrintDelegate PrintCallback;
    }

    public class Client
    {
        public void Print()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("in client");
        }
    }



   static void main()     
   {  
      DelegateTester tester = new DelegateTester();
      Client client = new Client();

      tester.PrintCallback += new DelegateTester.PrintDelegate(client.Print);
      tester.PrintCallback += new DelegateTester.PrintDelegate(client.Print);

      // copy the delegate
      DelegateTester.PrintDelegate copyOfDelegate = tester.PrintCallback;
      tester.PrintCallback -= new DelegateTester.PrintDelegate(client.Print);

      tester.PrintCallback();
      copyOfDelegate.Invoke();
    }

Answer 1

I believe delegates are immutable, so where you have set:

copyOfDelegate = tester.PrintCallback;

And then:

PrintCallback -= new DelegateTester.PrintDelegate(client.Print);

You’ve actually assigned the original delegate instance to copyOfDelegate, and then a new delegate is created when you assign to Printcallback because of the immutability.