VB.NET: Lambda expression, use assignment operator instead of equality

Question

I have a method that takes an System.Action, this is what I'm trying to feed it: ``` Function() Me._existingImports = Me.GetImportedAds() ``` The thing is that it complains about the = sign since it thinks I'm trying to do a comparison, which I'm not. I want to assign the Me._existingImports the value of Me.GetImportedAds(), but VB.NET complains about DataTable not having a = operator. How can I force it to use the assignment operator instead of the equality operator? In C# this works perfectly fine: ``` () => this.existingImports = this.GetImportedAds() ``` For now the solution will be to use a standalone method, but that's way more code than needed.

Accepted Answer

When using `Function()`, you really define an anonymous function which means you map values to values.

Therefore `Function()` strictly needs an expression (like `x` or `42` ...) as the body, which an assignment is not! (Assignments don't evaluate to values like in C-style languages in VB)

Thus what you need is not a `Function()` but a `Sub()`, which contains statements (actions) rather than values.

```
Sub() Me._existingImports = Me.GetImportedAds()
```

C# doesn't distinguish here, the (much nicer) `... => ...` syntax covers it all.

VB.NET: Lambda expression, use assignment operator instead of equality

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