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C# Tutorial - Anonymous Delegates And Scoping [Intermediate]


Anonymous delegates in C# are extremely useful, but in order to use them correctly, it is important to understand scoping in C#. Just the other day I came across a situation in which the behavior I expected was completely different from what actually happened - because it was all happening in the wrong scope. So, I thought if it confused me, I should throw it up here as a tutorial, because I'm sure it has confused other people.

Take a look at the block of code below, where we are creating (and then returning) a set of delegates that will print out a number to the console. What do you think will get printed out when each delegate in the returned array gets called?
public delegate void NoArgDelegate();

static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeOne()
{
  NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
  for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
    array[i] = delegate() { Console.WriteLine(i); };
  return array;
}
 
At first glance, you might think that the output would look something like this:
0
1
2
3
4
 
But what actually gets output is the following:
5
5
5
5
5
 
This is because each delegate refers not to a copy of the variable i, but the actual i from the for loop. And after the for loop completes, the value of i is 5, so that is the value each delegate prints out.

If you aren't convinced that all the delegates are pointing to the same i, we can write the code this way:
public delegate void NoArgDelegate();

static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeOne()
{
  NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
  for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
    array[i] = delegate() { Console.WriteLine(i++); };
  return array;
}
 
Now, we are incrementing i after the delegate prints out. And the output of these delegates will look like this:
5
6
7
8
9
 
So how do we get around this problem? Well there are two easy solutions. First, we can write the code like the following:
public delegate void NoArgDelegate();

static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeTwo()
{
  NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
  for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
  {
    int extraI = i;
    array[i] = delegate() { Console.WriteLine(extraI++); };
  }
  return array;
}
 
The output of these delegates will be:
0
1
2
3
4
 
So why does this work? Well, we are essentially creating a copy of i in each interation of the for loop, in the form of extraI. Because we are declaring extraI inside the for loop in each interation, the extraI variable is actually different for each delegate. That is the key - it has to be a different variable for each delegate. For instance, if we delcared extraI outside of the loop, we would have even different behavior:
public delegate void NoArgDelegate();

static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeThree()
{
  NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
  int extraI;
  for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
  {
    extraI = i;
    array[i] = delegate() { Console.WriteLine(extraI++); };
  }
  return array;
}
 
Here, yet again, all the delegates will point to the same variable, and we will get the following output:
4
5
6
7
8
 
The output is a little bit different, because extraI ends up being the value 4 after the for loop finishes (unlike before when we were using i and it finishes the loop at the value 5).

Finally, theres the secod way to get around this problem, which is a little bit cleaner. It looks like the following:
public delegate void NoArgDelegate();

static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeFour()
{
  NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
  for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
    array[i] = CreateDelegateFour(i);
  return array;
}

static NoArgDelegate CreateDelegateFour(int i)
{ return delegate() { Console.WriteLine(i++); }; }
 
Here, again, the output is the expected:
0
1
2
3
4
 
What we are doing in this case is pushing the "delegate creation" into a seperate function. The value of i gets copied by default when the function is called, so each delegate gets a separate copy of i. Plus, since its in a separate function, it looks a bit cleaner.

Here is all the code in one block, so you can copy and paste it into visual studio and play around:
using System;

namespace Scoping
{
  class Program
  {
    public delegate void NoArgDelegate();

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("I am Method One:");
      NoArgDelegate[] array = InitializeOne();
      foreach (NoArgDelegate d in array)
        d();
      Console.WriteLine();
      Console.WriteLine("I am Method Two:");
      array = InitializeTwo();
      foreach (NoArgDelegate d in array)
        d();
      Console.WriteLine();
      Console.WriteLine("I am Method Three:");
      array = InitializeThree();
      foreach (NoArgDelegate d in array)
        d();
      Console.WriteLine();
      Console.WriteLine("I am Method Four:");
      array = InitializeFour();
      foreach (NoArgDelegate d in array)
        d();
      Console.WriteLine();
      Console.Read();
    }

    static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeOne()
    {
      NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
      for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
        array[i] = delegate() { Console.WriteLine(i++); };
      return array;
    }

    static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeTwo()
    {
      NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
      for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
      {
        int extraI = i;
        array[i] = delegate() { Console.WriteLine(extraI++); };
      }
      return array;
    }

    static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeThree()
    {
      NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
      int extraI;
      for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
      {
        extraI = i;
        array[i] = delegate() { Console.WriteLine(extraI++); };
      }
      return array;
    }

    static NoArgDelegate[] InitializeFour()
    {
      NoArgDelegate[] array = new NoArgDelegate[5];
      for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
        array[i] = CreateDelegateFour(i);
      return array;
    }

    static NoArgDelegate CreateDelegateFour(int i)
    { return delegate() { Console.WriteLine(i++); }; }
  }
}
 
Hopefully, this short tutorial on delegates and scoping helps you to understand who is referring to what in the world of anonymous delegates.
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