I'm trying to define a dictionary whose value is an Generic Action<>
delegate

private Dictionary<string, List<Action<T>>>

Any ideas on to how specify T or a different collection type more suitable
to this?

Thanks

What is the use-case here? What do you want to do with it? For example,
a plain Action might suffice, using the delegate's target for the
instance (perhaps via a closure)?

Marc

Sorry,
I'm trying to postpone the concrete type definition until runtime and I
do want a List<Action<T>> of generic delegates for every key in the
dictionary.

"Peter Duniho" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:56:49 -0700, eric <7ak@!_df.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to define a dictionary whose value is an Generic Action<>
>> delegate
>
> Then rather than what you posted:
>
>> private Dictionary<string, List<Action<T>>>
>
> You would use:
>
> Dictionary<string, Action<T>>
>
> Where "T" is of course an actual type, assuming you want to declare a
> concrete version of the generic Dictionary.
>
>> Any ideas on to how specify T or a different collection type more
>> suitable
>> to this?
>
> Meaning what? You "specify T" by putting a valid concrete type in for the
> generic type parameter. If that doesn't answer your question, I think you
> need to rephrase the question so that you're more clear about what you're
> actually trying to accomplish.
>
> Pete

Note that Action<T>, as a multicast delegate, can already support
multiple delegates per instance. Re the generics - what is the
difficulty? If the T is only known at runtime, then you'll need to use
reflection and MakeGenericType() or MakeGenericMethod() - but if there
*is* no appropriate T you might have to use "object" or something
comparable.

Marc

eric <7ak@!_df.com> wrote:
> I'm trying to postpone the concrete type definition until runtime and I
> do want a List<Action<T>> of generic delegates for every key in the
> dictionary.

As Marc said, you can probably just use a multi-cast delegate to avoid
needing a List.

However, the point about generics is to give you *compile-time* safety.
If you won't know the type at compile time, other than that it's a
delegate, you should probably just make it a
Dictionary<string,Delegate>

--
Jon Skeet - <(E-Mail Removed)>
Web site: http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon_skeet
C# in Depth: http://csharpindepth.com

I swapped out the Dictionary for Hashtable and that was able to give me what
I was after.

Thanks to all for the help.

"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> eric <7ak@!_df.com> wrote:
>> I'm trying to postpone the concrete type definition until runtime and
>> I
>> do want a List<Action<T>> of generic delegates for every key in the
>> dictionary.
>
> As Marc said, you can probably just use a multi-cast delegate to avoid
> needing a List.
>
> However, the point about generics is to give you *compile-time* safety.
> If you won't know the type at compile time, other than that it's a
> delegate, you should probably just make it a
> Dictionary<string,Delegate>
>
> --
> Jon Skeet - <(E-Mail Removed)>
> Web site: http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
> Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon_skeet
> C# in Depth: http://csharpindepth.com

eric <7ak@!_df.com> wrote:
> I swapped out the Dictionary for Hashtable and that was able to give me what
> I was after.

Well that's just going completely nongeneric.

Why not use Dictionary<string,Delegate> - that at least gives you
*some* safety...

--
Jon Skeet - <(E-Mail Removed)>
Web site: http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon_skeet
C# in Depth: http://csharpindepth.com

I couldn't make Delegate work with Action<T>. I was really trying to
implement something where
I didn't need to know about a specific delegate type. The end result is
really not as nongeneric in the untype-safe sense as you might think.

"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> eric <7ak@!_df.com> wrote:
>> I swapped out the Dictionary for Hashtable and that was able to give me
>> what
>> I was after.
>
> Well that's just going completely nongeneric.
>
> Why not use Dictionary<string,Delegate> - that at least gives you
> *some* safety...
>
> --
> Jon Skeet - <(E-Mail Removed)>
> Web site: http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
> Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon_skeet
> C# in Depth: http://csharpindepth.com

eric <7ak@!_df.com> wrote:
> I couldn't make Delegate work with Action<T>. I was really trying to
> implement something where
> I didn't need to know about a specific delegate type.

Which is why you'd need Delegate instead of Action<T>. Then just invoke
it dynamically, which I suspect is what you're having to do anyway.

> The end result is really not as nongeneric in the untype-safe sense
> as you might think.

You're using Hashtable, which is completely nongeneric and untypesafe.

--
Jon Skeet - <(E-Mail Removed)>
Web site: http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon_skeet
C# in Depth: http://csharpindepth.com