Pointers to Functions in C# and Python
/
After the description of pointers to functions in C it occurred to me that you might like to know how to do function pointers in other languages. Then again you might not, in which case just look at the picture above that I took in Singapore a while back.
Pointers to methods in C#
If you want to make a reference to a function in C# you need to create a delegate type which contains the reference. Instances of the delegate type can then be made to refer to methods. It’s a bit more long-winded than the C way of doing things, but delegates can also be used as the basis of some quite powerful publish and subscribe mechanisms which I might mention later.
class Program
{
delegate void SimpleDelegate();
static void aMethod()
{
Console.WriteLine("Hello from a method");
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
SimpleDelegate myDelegateInstance = aMethod;
myDelegateInstance();
}
}
This is a tiny example of a program that uses a delegate to make a reference to a method. The delegate type that I’ve created is called SimpleDelegate. Variables of this type (I made one called myDelegateInstance) can be made to refer to a a method and then called.
If you compare this with the C syntax, it’s not that different. The good news is that before the program runs the compiler can make sure a program will never call a method incorrectly using a delegate. Because SimpleDelegate is declared as returning void (i.e. nothing) and accepting no parameters it is impossible to make instances of SimpleDelegate refer to a method that returns a different type or has a different set of parameters. If you worry about these kind of things, this is a good thing.
Pointers to Functions in Python
If you want to make a pointer to a function in Python you just do it:
def a_function():
print("Hello from a function")
function_ref = a_function
function_ref()
The variable function_ref is made to refer to the function a_function and the function_ref variable can then be called as a function. Later in the program function_ref might store an integer, or string, or a reference to an object of type Cheese. That’s how Python is. This means that a Python program can fail in ways that a C# program won’t, because the errors that cause the Python program to fail would be picked up by the C# compiler.
This nicely encapsulates the difference between the cultures of C# and Python. C# is great because it forces you to invest effort to make sure that the objects in your programs can only ever be fitted together correctly. Python takes everything on trust. It lets the programmer just get on with expressing the actions to be performed and assumes that things will turn out OK. If they don’t the program will fail at runtime.
I love the way that C# forces me to think about my code, and I love the way that Python just lets me get on with writing, without me having to worry about adding lots of extra syntax to express what I know I want. You should know about both ways of working.
