Method Pointers

[Brian Goetz]

Its possible to do that within a compilation unit (just as javac folds 
together identical string constants within a class, but not across 
classes), but in general you're fighting with computational physics and 
its just a matter of which "easy cases" you agree to handle.  (See any 
Theory of Computation text for "Rice's Theorem".)

On 3/23/2012 9:22 PM, Ted Neward wrote:
> Very true! Hadn’t thought about that. I was thinking the more pedestrian
> case where Foo() will be a singular mdtoken, not the lambda case. You’re
> closer to the subject than I, Neal, but I thought I heard a C# team
> member tell me, though, that they were trying to optimize your case at
> the compiler level, so that a1 and a2 would, in fact, be considered
> identical, since the lambda used would in fact be “folded” down into a
> single method (since they contain the same contents). Not so?
>
> Ted Neward
>
> Java, .NET, XML Services
>
> Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
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> http://www.tedneward.com
>
> *From:*neal.gafter at gmail.com [mailto:neal.gafter at gmail.com] *On Behalf
> Of *Neal Gafter
> *Sent:* Friday, March 23, 2012 1:02 PM
> *To:* Ted Neward
> *Cc:* Vitaly Davidovich; Brian Goetz; lambda-dev
> *Subject:* Re: Method Pointers
>
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:15 PM, Ted Neward <ted at tedneward.com
> <mailto:ted at tedneward.com>> wrote:
>
> That would be tricky; under the covers, a Delegate is a wrapper around a
> metadata token (the primary key in to the relational table in which all .NET
> metadata is stored, in contrast to the tree structure of .class files), so
> it's easy to compare the metadata tokens. Lacking any sort of primary key in
> the .class files, the JVM is back to the problems that Brian mentioned
> earlier.
>
> I think we're imagining that .NET gives us more than it actually does.
> The fact that two .NET delegate objects have distinct metadata tokens
> gives you no information as to whether or not they represent the same
> underlying lambda expression. So .NET isn't in much better shape.
> Specifically, the following snippet of C# code prints "False":
>
> System.Action a1 = () => { };
>
> System.Action a2 = () => { };
>
> System.Console.WriteLine(a1.Method == a2.Method);
>