Delegates

A delegate is a special kind of variable/function combination. Delegates were introduced in Unreal Engine 2 and are declared similar to regular functions. The difference is, that instead of the keyword function or event, delegate functions are declared with the keyword delegate. In Unreal Engine 3, delegate functions were accompanied by a delegate variable type, so delegates can now also be stored in structs or arrays and can be passed into or returned by a function.

Delegate functions

A delegate function declaration consists of the following parts:

[modifiers] delegate [returntype] delegatename ( [parameter declarations] ) body_or_semicolon

Like regular functions, delegates can have a function body, which will be the default function associated with the delegate. If no body is defined, the delegate declaration must be terminated with a semicolon.

Like for regular function declarations, the return type is optional. Similarly, parameter declarations are the same as for regular functions. When assigning a function to the delegate, the function's parameter and return types must match the delegate's. The compiler will make sure this is the case and otherwise throw an error. Parameter names must always be specified, even if the delegate does not have a body definition.

Most function modifiers can be used for delegate functions, but some of them don't make much sense. For example, delegates can't be static and do not support the Unreal Engine 3 replication modifiers client, server and reliable. Note that most modifiers, like simulated, only apply to the delegate body and will not have any effect while other functions are assigned to the delegate.

Delegate variable type

The delegate type for variables, parameters and function return types in Unreal Engine 3 looks very similar to a class limiter:

delegate < delegatename >

Here, delegatename is the name of a delegate function, whose prototype (i.e. parameters and return type) will be used for the delegate variable. Only functions with the same parameter and return types as the referenced delegate function may be assigned to the variable.

While it is possible to declare arrays of delegates, the compiler only allows calling referenced functions through non-array variables. The element of a delegate array first needs to be assigned to a non-array variable of the same delegate type, but can then be called like a normal function.

function callRandomDelegate(array<delegate<X> > delegateList)
{
  local delegate<X> selectedDelegate;
 
  // select a random delegate from the list
  selectedDelegate = delegateList[Rand(delegateList.Length)];
  // call that delegate
  selectedDelegate();
}
 
delegate X();

This example also demonstrates, that the closing angle brackets in arrays of delegates need to be separated by whitespace, just like with class limiters.

Delegates in Default Properties

While the compiler won't complain about any assignment of functions to delegates in the default properties and this is also done in some of Epic's own code, it doesn't seem to work well for normal users. Calling a delegate that got assigned per default properties may lead to a crash of the whole engine with an access violation error. Sometimes it will work, but the function will be called in context of default object. One can tell that by verifying instance name: it would be Default__ClassName. Exact circumstances where such delegate assignment works are still unknown.

In such a case is it enough to perform the delegate assignment at runtime, for instance in PostBeginPlay().