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POWhat does Expression.Quote() do that Expression.Constant() can’t already do?
 

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  1. POWhat does Expression.Quote() do that Expression.Constant() can’t already do?
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    <p><strong>Note: I am aware of the earlier question “<a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3138133/">What is the purpose of LINQ's Expression.Quote method?</a>”</strong>, but if you read on you will see that it doesn’t answer my question.</p> <p>I understand what the stated purpose of <code>Expression.Quote()</code> is. However, <code>Expression.Constant()</code> can be used for the same purpose (in addition to all the purposes that <code>Expression.Constant()</code> is already used for). Therefore, I don’t understand why <code>Expression.Quote()</code> is at all required. </p> <p>To demonstrate this, I have written a quick example where one would customarily use <code>Quote</code> (see the line marked with exclamation points), but I used <code>Constant</code> instead and it worked equally well:</p> <pre><code>string[] array = { "one", "two", "three" }; // This example constructs an expression tree equivalent to the lambda: // str =&gt; str.AsQueryable().Any(ch =&gt; ch == 'e') Expression&lt;Func&lt;char, bool&gt;&gt; innerLambda = ch =&gt; ch == 'e'; var str = Expression.Parameter(typeof(string), "str"); var expr = Expression.Lambda&lt;Func&lt;string, bool&gt;&gt;( Expression.Call(typeof(Queryable), "Any", new Type[] { typeof(char) }, Expression.Call(typeof(Queryable), "AsQueryable", new Type[] { typeof(char) }, str), // !!! Expression.Constant(innerLambda) // &lt;--- !!! ), str ); // Works like a charm (prints one and three) foreach (var str in array.AsQueryable().Where(expr)) Console.WriteLine(str); </code></pre> <p>The output of <code>expr.ToString()</code> is the same for both, too (whether I use <code>Constant</code> or <code>Quote</code>).</p> <p>Given the above observations, it appears that <code>Expression.Quote()</code> is redundant. The C# compiler could have been made to compile nested lambda expressions into an expression tree involving <code>Expression.Constant()</code> instead of <code>Expression.Quote()</code>, and any LINQ query provider that wants to process expression trees into some other query language (such as SQL) could look out for a <code>ConstantExpression</code> with type <code>Expression&lt;TDelegate&gt;</code> instead of a <code>UnaryExpression</code> with the special <code>Quote</code> node type, and everything else would be the same.</p> <p>What am I missing? Why was <code>Expression.Quote()</code> and the special <code>Quote</code> node type for <code>UnaryExpression</code> invented?</p>
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    1. COGood question. I've wondered the same.
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