What is the difference between lambdas and delegates in the .NET Framework?

Question

I get asked this question a lot and I thought I\'d solicit some input on how to best describe the difference.

Answer 1

A delegate is a function signature; something like

delegate string MyDelegate(int param1);

The delegate does not implement a body.

The lambda is a function call that matches the signature of the delegate. For the above delegate, you might use any of;

(int i) => i.ToString();
(int i) => "ignored i";
(int i) => "Step " + i.ToString() + " of 10";

The Delegate type is badly named, though; creating an object of type Delegate actually creates a variable which can hold functions -- be they lambdas, static methods, or class methods.