Coolest C# LINQ/Lambdas trick you've ever pull

Question

Saw a post about hidden features in C# but not a lot of people have written linq/lambdas example so... I wonder...

What's the coolest (as in the most elegant) use of the C# LINQ and/or Lambdas/anonymous delegates you have ever saw/written?

Bonus if it has went into production too!

Answer 1

http://igoro.com/archive/extended-linq-additional-operators-for-linq-to-objects/

http://igoro.com/archive/7-tricks-to-simplify-your-programs-with-linq/

Answer 2

Some basic functionals:

public static class Functionals
{
    // One-argument Y-Combinator.
    public static Func<T, TResult> Y<T, TResult>(Func<Func<T, TResult>, Func<T, TResult>> F)
    {
        return t => F(Y(F))(t);
    }

    // Two-argument Y-Combinator.
    public static Func<T1, T2, TResult> Y<T1, T2, TResult>(Func<Func<T1, T2, TResult>, Func<T1, T2, TResult>> F)
    {
        return (t1, t2) => F(Y(F))(t1, t2);
    }

    // Three-arugument Y-Combinator.
    public static Func<T1, T2, T3, TResult> Y<T1, T2, T3, TResult>(Func<Func<T1, T2, T3, TResult>, Func<T1, T2, T3, TResult>> F)
    {
        return (t1, t2, t3) => F(Y(F))(t1, t2, t3);
    }

    // Four-arugument Y-Combinator.
    public static Func<T1, T2, T3, T4, TResult> Y<T1, T2, T3, T4, TResult>(Func<Func<T1, T2, T3, T4, TResult>, Func<T1, T2, T3, T4, TResult>> F)
    {
        return (t1, t2, t3, t4) => F(Y(F))(t1, t2, t3, t4);
    }

    // Curry first argument
    public static Func<T1, Func<T2, TResult>> Curry<T1, T2, TResult>(Func<T1, T2, TResult> F)
    {
        return t1 => t2 => F(t1, t2);
    }

    // Curry second argument.
    public static Func<T2, Func<T1, TResult>> Curry2nd<T1, T2, TResult>(Func<T1, T2, TResult> F)
    {
        return t2 => t1 => F(t1, t2);
    }

    // Uncurry first argument.
    public static Func<T1, T2, TResult> Uncurry<T1, T2, TResult>(Func<T1, Func<T2, TResult>> F)
    {
        return (t1, t2) => F(t1)(t2);
    }

    // Uncurry second argument.
    public static Func<T1, T2, TResult> Uncurry2nd<T1, T2, TResult>(Func<T2, Func<T1, TResult>> F)
    {
        return (t1, t2) => F(t2)(t1);
    }
}

Don't do much good if you don't know how to use them. In order to know that, you need to know what they're for:

• What is currying?
• What is a y-combinator?

Answer 3

The LINQ Raytracer certainly tops my list =)

I'm not quite sure if qualifies as elegant but it is most certainly the coolest linq-expression I've ever seen!

Oh, and just to be extremely clear; I did not write it (Luke Hoban did)

Answer 4

Progress Reporting for long running LINQ queries. In the blog post you can find an extension method WithProgressReporting() that lets you discover and report the progress of a linq query as it executes.

Answer 5

Perhaps not the coolest, but recently I have been using them anytime I have a block of code that gets C+Pd over and over again only to have a few lines change. For instance, running simple SQL commands to retrieve data can be done like so:

SqlDevice device = GetDevice();

return device.GetMultiple<Post>(
    "GetPosts",
    (s) => {
        s.Parameters.AddWithValue("@CreatedOn", DateTime.Today);

        return true;
    },
    (r, p) => {
        p.Title = r.Get<string>("Title");

        // Fill out post object

        return true;
    }
);

Which could return a list of Posts that were created today. This way I don't have to copy and paste the try-catch-finally block fifteen million times for each command, object, et cetera.

Answer 6

I did one (a bit crazy, but interesting) thing like that just recently:

• http://tomasp.net/blog/reactive-iv-reactivegame.aspx