What is the difference between calling a delegate

Question

The docs for both DynamicInvoke and DynamicInvokeImpl say:

Dynamically invokes (late-bound) the method represented by the current delegate.

I notice that DynamicInvoke and DynamicInvokeImpl take an array of objects instead of a specific list of arguments (which is the late-bound part I'm guessing). But is that the only difference? And what is the difference between DynamicInvoke and DynamicInvokeImpl.

Answer 1

The main difference between calling it directly (which is short-hand for Invoke(...)) and using DynamicInvoke is performance; a factor of more than *700 by my measure (below).

With the direct/Invoke approach, the arguments are already pre-validated via the method signature, and the code already exists to pass those into the method directly (I would say "as IL", but I seem to recall that the runtime provides this directly, without any IL). With DynamicInvoke it needs to check them from the array via reflection (i.e. are they all appropriate for this call; do they need unboxing, etc); this is slow (if you are using it in a tight loop), and should be avoided where possible.

Example; results first (I increased the LOOP count from the previous edit, to give a sensible comparison):

Direct: 53ms
Invoke: 53ms
DynamicInvoke (re-use args): 37728ms
DynamicInvoke (per-cal args): 39911ms

With code:

static void DoesNothing(int a, string b, float? c) { }
static void Main() {
    Action<int, string, float?> method = DoesNothing;

    int a = 23;
    string b = "abc";
    float? c = null;
    const int LOOP = 5000000;

    Stopwatch watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP; i++) {
        method(a, b, c);
    }
    watch.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("Direct: " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");

    watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP; i++) {
        method.Invoke(a, b, c);
    }
    watch.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("Invoke: " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");

    object[] args = new object[] { a, b, c };
    watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP; i++) {
        method.DynamicInvoke(args);
    }
    watch.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("DynamicInvoke (re-use args): "
         + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");

    watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP; i++) {
        method.DynamicInvoke(a,b,c);
    }
    watch.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("DynamicInvoke (per-cal args): "
         + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");
}

Answer 2

Coincidentally I have found another difference.

If Invoke throws an exception it can be caught by the expected exception type. However DynamicInvoke throws a TargetInvokationException. Here is a small demo:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace DynamicInvokeVsInvoke
{
   public class StrategiesProvider
   {
      private readonly Dictionary<StrategyTypes, Action> strategies;

      public StrategiesProvider()
      {
         strategies = new Dictionary<StrategyTypes, Action>
                      {
                         {StrategyTypes.NoWay, () => { throw new NotSupportedException(); }}
                         // more strategies...
                      };
      }

      public void CallStrategyWithDynamicInvoke(StrategyTypes strategyType)
      {
         strategies[strategyType].DynamicInvoke();
      }

      public void CallStrategyWithInvoke(StrategyTypes strategyType)
      {
         strategies[strategyType].Invoke();
      }
   }

   public enum StrategyTypes
   {
      NoWay = 0,
      ThisWay,
      ThatWay
   }
}

---

While the second test goes green, the first one faces a TargetInvokationException.

using System;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;
using SharpTestsEx;

namespace DynamicInvokeVsInvoke.Tests
{
   [TestClass]
   public class DynamicInvokeVsInvokeTests
   {
      [TestMethod]
      public void Call_strategy_with_dynamic_invoke_can_be_catched()
      {
         bool catched = false;
         try
         {
            new StrategiesProvider().CallStrategyWithDynamicInvoke(StrategyTypes.NoWay);
         }
         catch(NotSupportedException exc)
         {
            /* Fails because the NotSupportedException is wrapped
             * inside a TargetInvokationException! */
            catched = true;
         }
         catched.Should().Be(true);
      }

      [TestMethod]
      public void Call_strategy_with_invoke_can_be_catched()
      {
         bool catched = false;
         try
         {
            new StrategiesProvider().CallStrategyWithInvoke(StrategyTypes.NoWay);
         }
         catch(NotSupportedException exc)
         {
            catched = true;
         }
         catched.Should().Be(true);
      }
   }
}

Answer 3

Really there is no functional difference between the two. if you pull up the implementation in reflector, you'll notice that DynamicInvoke just calls DynamicInvokeImpl with the same set of arguments. No extra validation is done and it's a non-virtual method so there is no chance for it's behavior to be changed by a derived class. DynamicInvokeImpl is a virtual method where all of the actual work is done.