Uses of Action delegate in C# [closed]

Question

Here is a small example that shows the usefulness of the Action delegate

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Action<String> print = new Action<String>(Program.Print);

        List<String> names = new List<String> { "andrew", "nicole" };

        names.ForEach(print);

        Console.Read();
    }

    static void Print(String s)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(s);
    }
}

Notice that the foreach method iterates the collection of names and executes the print method against each member of the collection. This a bit of a paradigm shift for us C# developers as we move towards a more functional style of programming. (For more info on the computer science behind it read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_(higher-order_function).

Now if you are using C# 3 you can slick this up a bit with a lambda expression like so:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        List<String> names = new List<String> { "andrew", "nicole" };

        names.ForEach(s => Console.WriteLine(s));

        Console.Read();
    }
}

Well one thing you could do is if you have a switch:

switch(SomeEnum)
{
  case SomeEnum.One:
      DoThings(someUser);
      break;
  case SomeEnum.Two:
      DoSomethingElse(someUser);
      break;
}

And with the might power of actions you can turn that switch into a dictionary:

Dictionary<SomeEnum, Action<User>> methodList = 
    new Dictionary<SomeEnum, Action<User>>()

methodList.Add(SomeEnum.One, DoSomething);
methodList.Add(SomeEnum.Two, DoSomethingElse); 

...

methodList[SomeEnum](someUser);

Or you could take this farther:

SomeOtherMethod(Action<User> someMethodToUse, User someUser)
{
    someMethodToUse(someUser);
}  

....

var neededMethod = methodList[SomeEnum];
SomeOtherMethod(neededMethod, someUser);

Just a couple of examples. Of course the more obvious use would be Linq extension methods.

MSDN says:

This delegate is used by the Array.ForEach method and the List.ForEach method to perform an action on each element of the array or list.

Except that, you can use it as a generic delegate that takes 1-3 parameters without returning any value.

You can use actions for short event handlers:

btnSubmit.Click += (sender, e) => MessageBox.Show("You clicked save!");