#1,149 – Generic Delegate Types

A delegate type can be generic.  Consider the following delegate type:

        public delegate T Merger<T>(T thing1, T thing2);

This delegate type defines a pattern for methods that take two parameters of a particular type and returns the same type.  Below are a couple examples of methods whose signature matches this delegate type.  (Methods are only static so that we can call them from another static method).

        public static int Add(int n1, int n2)
        {
            return n1 + n2;
        }

        public static Dog Breed(Dog mama, Dog papa)
        {
                return new Dog(mama.Name + papa.Name);
        }

We can now declare Merger<T> instances that refer to these methods as follows:

            Merger<int> adder = Add;
            Merger<Dog> breeder = Breed;