Unsubscribe anonymous method in C#

Question

Is it possible to unsubscribe an anonymous method from an event?

If I subscribe to an event like this:

void MyMethod()
{
    Console.WriteLine("I did it!");
}

MyEvent += MyMethod;

I can un-subscribe like this:

MyEvent -= MyMethod;

But if I subscribe using an anonymous method:

MyEvent += delegate(){Console.WriteLine("I did it!");};

is it possible to unsubscribe this anonymous method? If so, how?

Answer 1

One simple solution:

just pass the eventhandle variable as parameter to itself. Event if you have the case that you cannot access the original created variable because of multithreading, you can use this:

MyEventHandler foo = null;
foo = (s, ev, mehi) => MyMethod(s, ev, foo);
MyEvent += foo;

void MyMethod(object s, MyEventArgs ev, MyEventHandler myEventHandlerInstance)
{
    MyEvent -= myEventHandlerInstance;
    Console.WriteLine("I did it!");
}

Answer 2

From memory, the specification explicitly doesn't guarantee the behaviour either way when it comes to equivalence of delegates created with anonymous methods.

If you need to unsubscribe, you should either use a "normal" method or retain the delegate somewhere else so you can unsubscribe with exactly the same delegate you used to subscribe.

Answer 3

If the best way is to keep a reference on the subscribed eventHandler, this can be achieved using a Dictionary.

In this example, I have to use a anonymous method to include the mergeColumn parameter for a set of DataGridViews.

Using the MergeColumn method with the enable parameter set to true enables the event while using it with false disables it.

static Dictionary<DataGridView, PaintEventHandler> subscriptions = new Dictionary<DataGridView, PaintEventHandler>();

public static void MergeColumns(this DataGridView dg, bool enable, params ColumnGroup[] mergedColumns) {

    if(enable) {
        subscriptions[dg] = (s, e) => Dg_Paint(s, e, mergedColumns);
        dg.Paint += subscriptions[dg];
    }
    else {
        if(subscriptions.ContainsKey(dg)) {
            dg.Paint -= subscriptions[dg];
            subscriptions.Remove(dg);
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

If you want to be able to control unsubscription then you need to go the route indicated in your accepted answer. However, if you are just concerned about clearing up references when your subscribing class goes out of scope, then there is another (slightly convoluted) solution which involves using weak references. I've just posted a question and answer on this topic.

Answer 5

Action myDelegate = delegate(){Console.WriteLine("I did it!");};

MyEvent += myDelegate;


// .... later

MyEvent -= myDelegate;

Just keep a reference to the delegate around.