Why can a .NET delegate not be declared static?

Question

When I try to compile the following:

public static delegate void MoveDelegate (Actor sender, MoveDirection args); 

I receive, as an error: "The modifer 'static' is not valid for the this item."

I'm implementing this within a singleton, with a separate class which calls the delegate. The problem is that when I use the singleton instance within the other class to call the delegate (from the identifier, not the type), I can't do that for whatever reason, even when I declare the delegate non-static. Obviously, I can only refer to it via the type directly if and only if the delegate is static.

What is the reasoning behind this? I am using MonoDevelop 2.4.2.

update

After trying one of the suggestions with the following code:

public void Move(MoveDirection moveDir) {     ProcessMove(moveDir); }  public void ProcessMove(MoveDirection moveDir) {     Teleporter.MoveMethod mm = new Teleporter.MoveMethod(Move);      moveDelegate(this, moveDir); } 

I've received a processing error, which states that the MoveMethod must be a type, and not an identifier.

Answer 1

Try this:

public delegate void MoveDelegate(object o); public static MoveDelegate MoveMethod; 

So the method-variable can be defined static. The keyword static has no meaning for the delegate definition, just like enum or const definitions.

An example of how to assign the static method-field:

public class A {   public delegate void MoveDelegate(object o);   public static MoveDelegate MoveMethod; }  public class B {   public static void MoveIt(object o)   {     // Do something   }     }  public class C {   public void Assign()   {     A.MoveMethod = B.MoveIt;   }    public void DoSomething()   {     if (A.MoveMethod!=null)       A.MoveMethod(new object());    } }