Anonymous Methods/Delegates in C#.net

Anonymous Methods/Delegates in C#.net

C# 2.0 provides a new feature called Anonymous Methods, which allow you to create inline un-named ( i.e. anonymous ) methods in your code, which can help increase the readability and maintainability of your applications by keeping the caller of the method and the method itself as close to one another as possible.

Here is a simple example of using an anonymous method to find all the even integers from 1...10:
private int[] _integers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 };

int[] evenIntegers = Array.FindAll(_integers,
delegate(int integer)
{
return (integer%2 == 0);
}
);

The Anonymous Method is:
delegate(int integer)
{
return (integer%2 == 0);
}
which is called for each integer in the array and returns either true or false depending on if the integer is even.
If you don't use an anonymous method, you will need to create a separate method as such:

private int[] _integers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 };

int[] evenIntegers = Array.FindAll(_integers, IsEven);

private bool IsEven(int integer)
{
return (integer%2 == 0);
}
When you have very simple methods like above that won't be reused, I find it much more elegant and meaningful to use anonymous methods. The code stays closer together which makes it easier to follow and maintain.