What is the primary purpose of a delegate in programming?

The primary purpose of a delegate in programming is to facilitate event handling. Delegates are types that reference methods with a specific parameter list and return type, effectively acting as type-safe function pointers. They are particularly powerful in the context of event-driven programming, where they enable certain methods to be called in response to events without needing the consumer of the delegate to know about the implementation details.

In event handling, delegates allow a class to notify other classes or objects when something of interest occurs, such as a button click or a timer expiration. By using delegates, event handlers can be assigned dynamically at runtime, promoting a loosely coupled architecture where the event producer and consumer are not tightly bound to one another. This makes the code more flexible and maintainable.

While encapsulating function calls and improving code readability can be secondary benefits of delegates, their primary role in programming significantly emphasizes enabling event-driven patterns and handling events more efficiently.