What is the difference between new Action() and a lambda?

Question

So when I write something like this

Action action = new Action(()=>_myMessage = "hello");

Refactor Pro! Highlights this as a redundant delegate creation and allows me to to shorten it to

Action action = () => _myMessage="hello";

And this usually works great. Usually, but not always. For example, Rhino Mocks has an extension method named Do:

IMethodOptions<T> Do(Delegate action);

Here, passing in the first version works, but the second doesn't. What exactly is going on under the covers here?

Answer 1

The first version is effectively doing:

Action tmp = () => _myMessage = "hello";
var action = new Action(tmp);

The problem you're running into is that the compiler has to know what kind of delegate (or expression tree) the lambda expression should be converted into. That's why this:

var action = () => _myMessage="hello";

actually doesn't compile - it could be any delegate type with no parameters and either no return value or the same return type as _myMessage (which is presumably string). For instance, all of these are valid:

Action action = () => _myMessage="hello";
Func<string> action = () => _myMessage="hello";
MethodInvoker action = () => _myMessage="hello";
Expression<Action> = () => _myMessage="hello";
// etc

How could the C# compiler work out what type action was meant to be, if it were declared with var?

The simplest way to get round this when calling a method (for your Rhino Mocks example) is to cast:

methodOptions.Do((Action) (() => _myMessage = "hello"));