What is the recommended way of writing anonymous functions in C#?

Question

var seq = Enumerable.Range(1, 10).Reverse();
var sort1 = seq.OrderBy(i => i);
var sort2 = seq.OrderBy(delegate(int i) { return i; });

i think sort2 is more explicit but sort 1 is shorter. besides that, i don't really know the difference. what is the recommended way of doing this?

Answer 1

Lambda expressions are (IMO) better than anonymous methods in every case except where you don't care about the parameters, in which case there's a nice shortcut:

// Lambda expression has to specify parameter types
EventHandler x = (sender, args) => Console.WriteLine("Hi");

// Anonymous method can ignore them
EventHandler x = delegate { Console.WriteLine("Hi"); };

Lambda expressions have two other "problems" IMO:

• Obviously they're not available if you're not using C# 3. (Although you can target .NET 2.0 from VS2008 and still use them.)

• The syntax for a parameterless lambda expresssion is somewhat clunky:

  () => stuff