Function overloading: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:16, 2 June 2021

Revision as of 19:55, 12 June 2021

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{{Polymorphism}}

In some [[programming language]]s, '''function overloading''' or '''method overloading''' is the ability to create multiple [[subprogram|functions]] of the same name with different implementations. Calls to an overloaded function will run a specific implementation of that function appropriate to the context of the call, allowing one function call to perform different tasks depending on context.

For example, {{code|doTask()}} and{{code|doTask(object o)}} are overloaded functions. To call the latter, an [[object (computer science)|object]] must be passed as a [[parameter (computer science)|parameter]], whereas the former does not require a parameter, and is called with an empty parameter field. A common error would be to assign a default value to the object in the second function, which would result in an ''ambiguous call'' error, as the compiler wouldn't know which of the two methods to use.