How to: Execute Expression Trees (C# and Visual Basic)
This topic shows you how to execute an expression tree. Executing an expression tree may return a value, or it may just perform an action such as calling a method.
Only expression trees that represent lambda expressions can be executed. Expression trees that represent lambda expressions are of type LambdaExpression or Expression<TDelegate>. To execute these expression trees, call the Compile method to create an executable delegate, and then invoke the delegate.
 Note |
|---|
If the type of the delegate is not known, that is, the lambda expression is of type LambdaExpression and not Expression<TDelegate>, you must call the DynamicInvoke method on the delegate instead of invoking it directly. |
If an expression tree does not represent a lambda expression, you can create a new lambda expression that has the original expression tree as its body, by calling the Lambda<TDelegate>(Expression, IEnumerable<ParameterExpression>) method. Then, you can execute the lambda expression as described earlier in this section.
The following code example demonstrates how to execute an expression tree that represents raising a number to a power by creating a lambda expression and executing it. The result, which represents the number raised to the power, is displayed.
// The expression tree to execute.
BinaryExpression be = Expression.Power(Expression.Constant(2D), Expression.Constant(3D));
// Create a lambda expression.
Expression<Func<double>> le = Expression.Lambda<Func<double>>(be);
// Compile the lambda expression.
Func<double> compiledExpression = le.Compile();
// Execute the lambda expression.
double result = compiledExpression();
// Display the result.
Console.WriteLine(result);
// This code produces the following output:
// 8
