In C#, are Lamba Expressions objects?

Question

In C#, are lambda expressions objects? If so, what sort of object are they?

Answer 1

Lambda operations in Linq build what are called expression trees. You can read a bit about it here.

Answer 2

Yes, lambda expressions are converted to either a delegate or an expression tree - both of which are objects.

Answer 3

It's an anonymous function that has to conform to some kind of delegate. msdn So, in fact, they're instances of some delegate type.

Answer 4

Lambda expressions themselves only exist in source code. They don't have a type themselves, which is why the compiler always insists they're convert to a specific type.

That's why this code doesn't compile:

// No idea what type to convert to!
object x = y => y.Length;

But this does:

Func<string, int> x = y => y.Length;

Lambda expressions are always converted to either a delegate type or an expression tree type. Similarly, anonymous methods are always converted to a delegate type.