{{Short description|Capability of some programming languages}}
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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, {{codemono|doTask()}} and {{codenowrap|{{mono|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.
Another example is a {{codenowrap|{{mono|Print(object o)}}}} function that executes different actions based on whether it's printing text or photos. The two different functions may be overloaded as {{codenowrap|{{mono|Print(text_object T); Print(image_object P)}}.}} If we write the overloaded print functions for all objects our program will "print", we never have to worry about the type of the object, and the correct [[subroutine|function]] call again, the call is always: {{codemono|Print(something)}}.
