How do you use Func<> and Action<> when desi

Question

All the examples I can find about Func<> and Action<> are simple as in the one below where you see how they technically work but I would like to see them used in examples where they solve problems that previously could not be solved or could be solved only in a more complex way, i.e. I know how they work and I can see they are terse and powerful, so I want to understand them in a larger sense of what kinds of problems they solve and how I could use them in the design of applications.

In what ways (patterns) do you use Func<> and Action<> to solve real problems?

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace TestFunc8282
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //func with delegate
            Func<string, string> convert = delegate(string s)
            {
                return s.ToUpper();
            };

            //func with lambda
            Func<string, string> convert2 = s => s.Substring(3, 10);

            //action
            Action<int,string> recordIt = (i,title) =>
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("--- {0}:",title);
                    Console.WriteLine("Adding five to {0}:", i);
                    Console.WriteLine(i + 5);
                };

            Console.WriteLine(convert("This is the first test."));
            Console.WriteLine(convert2("This is the second test."));
            recordIt(5, "First one");
            recordIt(3, "Second one");

            Console.ReadLine();

        }
    }
}

Answer 1

One thing I use it for is Caching of expensive method calls that never change given the same input:

public static Func<TArgument, TResult> Memoize<TArgument, TResult>(this Func<TArgument, TResult> f)
{
    Dictionary<TArgument, TResult> values;

    var methodDictionaries = new Dictionary<string, Dictionary<TArgument, TResult>>();

    var name = f.Method.Name;
    if (!methodDictionaries.TryGetValue(name, out values))
    {
        values = new Dictionary<TArgument, TResult>();

        methodDictionaries.Add(name, values);
    }

    return a =>
    {
        TResult value;

        if (!values.TryGetValue(a, out value))
        {
            value = f(a);
            values.Add(a, value);
        }

        return value;
    };
}

The default recursive fibonacci example:

class Foo
{
  public Func<int,int> Fibonacci = (n) =>
  {
    return n > 1 ? Fibonacci(n-1) + Fibonacci(n-2) : n;
  };

  public Foo()
  {
    Fibonacci = Fibonacci.Memoize();

    for (int i=0; i<50; i++)
      Console.WriteLine(Fibonacci(i));
  }
}

Answer 2

Using linq.

List<int> list = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };

var even = list.Where(i => i % 2);

The parameter for Where is an Func<int, bool>.

Lambda expressions are one of my favorite parts of C#. :)

Answer 3

Dunno if it's bad form to answer the same question twice or not, but to get some ideas for better uses of these types in general I suggest reading Jeremy Miller's MSDN article on Functional Programming:

Functional Programming for Everyday .NET Development