[c#] Func vs. Action vs. Predicate

With real examples and their use, can someone please help me understand:

  1. When do we need a Func<T, ..> delegate?
  2. When do we need an Action<T> delegate?
  3. When do we need a Predicate<T> delegate?

This question is related to c# delegates action func

The answer is


Func - When you want a delegate for a function that may or may not take parameters and returns a value. The most common example would be Select from LINQ:

var result = someCollection.Select( x => new { x.Name, x.Address });

Action - When you want a delegate for a function that may or may not take parameters and does not return a value. I use these often for anonymous event handlers:

button1.Click += (sender, e) => { /* Do Some Work */ }

Predicate - When you want a specialized version of a Func that evaluates a value against a set of criteria and returns a boolean result (true for a match, false otherwise). Again, these are used in LINQ quite frequently for things like Where:

var filteredResults = 
    someCollection.Where(x => x.someCriteriaHolder == someCriteria);

I just double checked and it turns out that LINQ doesn't use Predicates. Not sure why they made that decision...but theoretically it is still a situation where a Predicate would fit.


Action is a delegate (pointer) to a method, that takes zero, one or more input parameters, but does not return anything.

Func is a delegate (pointer) to a method, that takes zero, one or more input parameters, and returns a value (or reference).

Predicate is a special kind of Func often used for comparisons.

Though widely used with Linq, Action and Func are concepts logically independent of Linq. C++ already contained the basic concept in form of typed function pointers.

Here is a small example for Action and Func without using Linq:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Action<int> myAction = new Action<int>(DoSomething);
        myAction(123);           // Prints out "123"
                                 // can be also called as myAction.Invoke(123);

        Func<int, double> myFunc = new Func<int, double>(CalculateSomething);
        Console.WriteLine(myFunc(5));   // Prints out "2.5"
    }

    static void DoSomething(int i)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(i);
    }

    static double CalculateSomething(int i)
    {
        return (double)i/2;
    }
}

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