With real examples and their use, can someone please help me understand:

1. When do we need a Func<T, ..> delegate?
2. When do we need an Action<T> delegate?
3. When do we need a Predicate<T> delegate?

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3 Answers

The difference between Func and Action is simply whether you want the delegate to return a value (use Func) or not (use Action).

Func is probably most commonly used in LINQ - for example in projections:

 list.Select(x => x.SomeProperty)

or filtering:

 list.Where(x => x.SomeValue == someOtherValue)

or key selection:

 list.Join(otherList, x => x.FirstKey, y => y.SecondKey, ...)

Action is more commonly used for things like List<T>.ForEach: execute the given action for each item in the list. I use this less often than Func, although I do sometimes use the parameterless version for things like Control.BeginInvoke and Dispatcher.BeginInvoke.

Predicate is just a special cased Func<T, bool> really, introduced before all of the Func and most of the Action delegates came along. I suspect that if we'd already had Func and Action in their various guises, Predicate wouldn't have been introduced... although it does impart a certain meaning to the use of the delegate, whereas Func and Action are used for widely disparate purposes.

Predicate is mostly used in List<T> for methods like FindAll and RemoveAll.

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Action is a delegate (pointer) to a method, that takes zero, one or more input parameters, but does not return anything.

Func is a delegate (pointer) to a method, that takes zero, one or more input parameters, and returns a value (or reference).

Predicate is a special kind of Func often used for comparisons (takes a generic parameter and returns bool).

Though widely used with Linq, Action and Func are concepts logically independent of Linq. C++ already contained the basic concept in form of typed function pointers.

Here is a small example for Action and Func without using Linq:

class Program
{ static void Main(string[] args) { Action<int> myAction = new Action<int>(DoSomething); myAction(123); // Prints out "123" // can be also called as myAction.Invoke(123); Func<int, double> myFunc = new Func<int, double>(CalculateSomething); Console.WriteLine(myFunc(5)); // Prints out "2.5" } static void DoSomething(int i) { Console.WriteLine(i); } static double CalculateSomething(int i) { return (double)i/2; }
}

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Func - When you want a delegate for a function that may or may not take parameters and returns a value. The most common example would be Select from LINQ:

var result = someCollection.Select( x => new { x.Name, x.Address });

Action - When you want a delegate for a function that may or may not take parameters and does not return a value. I use these often for anonymous event handlers:

button1.Click += (sender, e) => { /* Do Some Work */ }

Predicate - When you want a specialized version of a Func that evaluates a value against a set of criteria and returns a boolean result (true for a match, false otherwise). Again, these are used in LINQ quite frequently for things like Where:

var filteredResults = someCollection.Where(x => x.someCriteriaHolder == someCriteria);

I just double checked and it turns out that LINQ doesn't use Predicates. Not sure why they made that decision...but theoretically it is still a situation where a Predicate would fit.

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