String- Function dictionary c# where functions have different arguments

Question

Basically I'm trying to make a string to function dictionary in c#, I've seen it done like this:

Dictionary<string, Func<string, string>>

However the issue is that the functions I want to put into my dictionary all have different amounts of arguments of different types. Therefore how do I make a dictionary that will do this?

Adam

Answer 1

You can define your own delegate taking a params string[] argument, like this:

delegate TOut ParamsFunc<TIn, TOut>(params TIn[] args);

And declares your dictionary like so:

Dictionary<string, ParamsFunc<string, string>> functions;

So, you can use it like this:

public static string Concat(string[] args)
{
    return string.Concat(args);
}

var functions = new Dictionary<string, ParamsFunc<string, string>>();
functions.Add("concat", Concat);

var concat = functions["concat"];

Console.WriteLine(concat());                                //Output: ""
Console.WriteLine(concat("A"));                             //Output: "A"
Console.WriteLine(concat("A", "B"));                        //Output: "AB"
Console.WriteLine(concat(new string[] { "A", "B", "C" }));  //Output: "ABC"

Be aware that you still need to declare your methods with a string[] argument, even if you only need one string parameter.

On the other hand, it can be called using params style (like concat() or concat("A", "B")).