C# - How can I "overload" a delegate?

Question

First, I was reading some forums and the help in MSDN and all says that a delegate can't be overloaded.

Now, I want to have something like this:

public delegate void OneDelegate(); public delegate void OneDelegate(params object[] a);  public void DoNothing(params object[] a) {} public void DoSomething() { /* do something */ }  private OneDelegate someFunction;  someFunction = new OneDelegate(DoSomething); someFunction = new OneDelegate(DoNothing); 

So, like you know, you CAN'T do this, because OneDelegate only refers to the first one and not the second one. But, is there a way for doing this? or something like that?

PS1: I want to have any number of OneDelegate declarations, not just one or two.

Answer 1

Imagine for a moment this was possible. Suppose I could have an overloaded delegate:

public delegate void OneDelegate(int i); public delegate void OneDelegate(string s); 

Now imagine I declare a variable of this type and then assign a function to it, for example:

OneDelegate myDelegate = StringMethod; 

where StringMethod is declared thusly:

public void StringMethod(string s) { Console.WriteLine(s); } 

Now you pass myDelegate to some other code, and that code does this:

myDelegate(47); 

What do you expect to happen in this case? How can the runtime call StringMethod() with an integer argument?

If you really want a delegate that can take any set of parameters at all, then the only option is to have one with a params object[] array:

public delegate void OneDelegate(params object[] parameters); 

But then you will have to assign to it a function that can actually handle any object array, for example:

public void MyMethod(params object[] parameters) {     if (parameters == null || parameters.Length == 0)         throw new ArgumentException("No parameters specified.");     if (parameters.Length > 1)         throw new ArgumentException("Too many parameters specified.");      if (parameters[0] is int)         IntMethod((int) parameters[0]);     else if (parameters[0] is string)         StringMethod((string) parameters[0]);     else         throw new ArgumentException("Unsupported parameter type."); } 

As you can see, this gets messy real quick. Therefore, I submit to you that if you need such a delegate, you have probably made a mistake somewhere in your architectural design. Identify this flaw and fix the design before you proceed with the implementation, as otherwise the maintainability of your code will suffer.