Delegate

In programming, a delegate is a type that represents a reference to a method. It’s similar to a function pointer in C, but it’s type-safe and easier to use.

Delegates are used in many situations where you want to pass a method as an argument to another method. For example, you might use a delegate to specify a method to be called back when an event occurs, or to specify a method to be used as a comparer when sorting a list.

Here’s an example of how you might use a delegate in C#:

using System;

delegate int MyDelegate(int x, int y);

class Program
{
    static int Add(int x, int y) { return x + y; }
    static int Multiply(int x, int y) { return x * y; }

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        MyDelegate d1 = Add;
        MyDelegate d2 = Multiply;

        Console.WriteLine(d1(3, 4));  // Outputs 7
        Console.WriteLine(d2(3, 4));  // Outputs 12
    }
}

In this example, the MyDelegate type represents a reference to a method that takes two int arguments and returns an int. The Add and Multiply methods have the same signature, so they can be assigned to variables of type MyDelegate.