Function overloading in Javascript - Best practices

Question

What is the best way(s) to fake function overloading in Javascript?

I know it is not possible to overload functions in Javascript as in other languages. If I neede

Answer 1

You can user the 'addMethod' from John Resig. With this method you can "overload" methods based on arguments count.

// addMethod - By John Resig (MIT Licensed)
function addMethod(object, name, fn){
    var old = object[ name ];
    object[ name ] = function(){
        if ( fn.length == arguments.length )
            return fn.apply( this, arguments );
        else if ( typeof old == 'function' )
            return old.apply( this, arguments );
    };
}

I have also created an alternative to this method that uses caching to hold the variations of the function. The differencies are described here

// addMethod - By Stavros Ioannidis
function addMethod(obj, name, fn) {
  obj[name] = obj[name] || function() {
    // get the cached method with arguments.length arguments
    var method = obj[name].cache[arguments.length];

    // if method exists call it 
    if ( !! method)
      return method.apply(this, arguments);
    else throw new Error("Wrong number of arguments");
  };

  // initialize obj[name].cache
  obj[name].cache = obj[name].cache || {};

  // Check if a method with the same number of arguments exists  
  if ( !! obj[name].cache[fn.length])
    throw new Error("Cannot define multiple '" + name +
      "' methods with the same number of arguments!");

  // cache the method with fn.length arguments
  obj[name].cache[fn.length] = function() {
    return fn.apply(this, arguments);
  };
}