Is it possible to cache a value evaluated in a lambda expression?

Question

In the ContainsIngredients method in the following code, is it possible to cache the p.Ingredients value instead of explicitly referencing it several times? This is a fairly trivial example that I just cooked up for illustrative purposes, but the code I'm working on references values deep inside p eg. p.InnerObject.ExpensiveMethod().Value

edit: I'm using the PredicateBuilder from http://www.albahari.com/nutshell/predicatebuilder.html

public class IngredientBag
{
    private readonly Dictionary<string, string> _ingredients = new Dictionary<string, string>();

    public void Add(string type, string name)
    {
        _ingredients.Add(type, name);
    }

    public string Get(string type)
    {
        return _ingredients[type];
    }

    public bool Contains(string type)
    {
        return _ingredients.ContainsKey(type);
    }
}

public class Potion
{
    public IngredientBag Ingredients { get; private set;}
    public string Name {get; private set;}        

    public Potion(string name) : this(name, null)
    {

    }

    public Potion(string name, IngredientBag ingredients)
    {
        Name = name;
        Ingredients = ingredients;
    }

    public static Expression<Func<Potion, bool>> 
        ContainsIngredients(string ingredientType, params string[] ingredients)
    {
        var predicate = PredicateBuilder.False<Potion>();
        // Here, I'm accessing p.Ingredients several times in one 
        // expression.  Is there any way to cache this value and
        // reference the cached value in the expression?
        foreach (var ingredient in ingredients)
        {
            var temp = ingredient;
            predicate = predicate.Or (
                p => p.Ingredients != null &&
                p.Ingredients.Contains(ingredientType) &&
                p.Ingredients.Get(ingredientType).Contains(temp));
        }

        return predicate;
    }

}


[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
    var potions = new List<Potion>
    {
        new Potion("Invisibility", new IngredientBag()),
        new Potion("Bonus"),
        new Potion("Speed", new IngredientBag()),
        new Potion("Strength", new IngredientBag()),
        new Potion("Dummy Potion")
    };

    potions[0].Ingredients.Add("solid", "Eye of Newt");
    potions[0].Ingredients.Add("liquid", "Gall of Peacock");
    potions[0].Ingredients.Add("gas", "Breath of Spider");

    potions[2].Ingredients.Add("solid", "Hair of Toad");
    potions[2].Ingredients.Add("gas", "Peacock's anguish");

    potions[3].Ingredients.Add("liquid", "Peacock Sweat");
    potions[3].Ingredients.Add("gas", "Newt's aura");

    var predicate = Potion.ContainsIngredients("solid", "Newt", "Toad")
        .Or(Potion.ContainsIngredients("gas", "Spider", "Scorpion"));

    foreach (var result in 
                from p in potions
                where(predicate).Compile()(p)
                select p)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(result.Name);
    }
}

Answer 1

Have you considered Memoization?

The basic idea is this; if you have an expensive function call, there is a function which will calculate the expensive value on first call, but return a cached version thereafter. The function looks like this;

static Func<T> Remember<T>(Func<T> GetExpensiveValue)
{
    bool isCached= false;
    T cachedResult = default(T);

    return () =>
    {
        if (!isCached)
        {
            cachedResult = GetExpensiveValue();
            isCached = true;
        }
        return cachedResult;

    };
}

This means you can write this;

    // here's something that takes ages to calculate
    Func<string> MyExpensiveMethod = () => 
    { 
        System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000); 
        return "that took ages!"; 
    };

    // and heres a function call that only calculates it the once.
    Func<string> CachedMethod = Remember(() => MyExpensiveMethod());

    // only the first line takes five seconds; 
    // the second and third calls are instant.
    Console.WriteLine(CachedMethod());
    Console.WriteLine(CachedMethod());
    Console.WriteLine(CachedMethod());

As a general strategy, it might help.