Anonymous delegates are used extensively in C#. Can you imagine Linq without anonymous delegates?
No matter if an anonymous delegate is defined using "delegate" keyword or as a lambda expression, the delegate does not have any "name" you could use to reference it elsewhere. And frankly, there's no point for an anonymous delegate to have a name ... or maybe there is?
Your goal is to be able to define recursive anonymous delegate in a single expression, so for example you can use such recursive anonymous delegate in Linq.
Specifically, following code should compile and produce a result according to the specification:
1: List<int> list = new List<int>() { 1,2,3,4,5 };
2: 3: foreach ( var item in
4: list.Select( i => [....] ) ) 5: 6: Console.WriteLine( item ); 7: 8: /* in the above line, the [....] should be replaced with a body of
9: an anonymous recursive delegate defined as follows:
10: 11: f(i) = 1 when i <= 1
12: f(i) = f(i-1) when i>1
13: 14: ( f(i) is always 1 when i >= 1 )
15: 16: You can add any auxiliary code under one condition:
17: the definition of the recursive delegate can only occur in place of [....]
18: */
I'm very creative :))
ReplyDeleteList<int> list = new List<int>() { 1,2,3,4,5 };
foreach (var item in list.Select( i => {
if(i<=1)
return 1;
StackTrace callStack = new StackTrace();
StackFrame frame = callStack.GetFrame(0);
MethodBase method = frame.GetMethod();
return (int)method.Invoke(null,new object[]{ i-1});
}) ) {
Console.WriteLine( item );
}
what a great solution :) I would never think of anything like that.
ReplyDeletecan you do it without reflection?
hint:
you should dig around fixed point operator of lambda expressions, known as the "Y operator". Derived by Curry/Turing, the Y operator is used to define recursion in pure lambda calculus. What's less obvious - the Y operator can be defined and used in C#.
I use google and that's the product: (but I'm not sure)
ReplyDeletestatic void Main(string[] args)
{
List<int> list = new List<int>() { 1,2,3,4,5 };
foreach (var item in list.Select(Y<int,int>(f => i => i <= 1 ? 1 : f(i-1))))
Console.WriteLine(item);
}
delegate Func<A, R> Recursive<A, R>(Recursive<A, R> r);
static Func<A, R> Y<A, R>(Func<Func<A, R>, Func<A, R>> f)
{
Recursive<A, R> rec = r => a => f(r(r))(a);
return rec(rec);
}
That's exactly the solution I've been thinking of. I think it's surprisingly ellegant.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, Deto's solution was indeed very creative.
Who the what now? Where can I find more information about this wacky Y operator?
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.msdn.com/wesdyer/archive/2007/02/02/anonymous-recursion-in-c.aspx
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dreamsongs.com/NewFiles/WhyOfY.pdf
http://blogs.msdn.com/madst/archive/2007/05/11/recursive-lambda-expressions.aspx
Thanks! That's kind of a hard term to google effectively.
ReplyDelete