C#: Virtual Function invocation is even faster than a delegate invocation?

Question

It just happens to me about one code design question. Say, I have one \"template\" method that invokes some functions that may \"alter\". A intuitive design is to follow \"Templ

Answer 1

A virtual call is dereferencing two pointers at a well-known offset in the memory. It's not actually dynamic binding; there is no code at runtime to reflect over the metadata to discover the right method. The compiler generates couple of instructions to do the call, based on the this pointer. in fact, the virtual call is a single IL instruction.

A predicate call is creating an anonymous class to encapsulate the predicate. That class has to be instantiated and there is some code generated to actually check whether the predicate function pointer is null or not.

I would suggest you look at the IL constructs for both. Compile a simplified version of your source above with a single call to each of the two DoSomthing. Then use ILDASM to see what is the actual code for each pattern.

(And I am sure I'll get downvoted for not using the right terminology :-))