What is method overloading? [duplicate]

Question

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• What Does “Overloaded”/“Overload”/“Overloading” Mean? 8 answers

I've found resources that say method overloading is the ability for a language to use the same method with a different outcome, depending on context. Somehow, when I read other definitions, I fell like that's not the whole definition. Is there more to method overloading?

Answer 1

That's just a very general way of describing it. Method overloading allows you to use a single method name, but "overload it" (provide more than one version) depending on "context" (which is typically the type or number of arguments passed in). Since each method is separate, they can cause a "different outcome".

For example, using C#, you can write:

void Foo()  // Version with no arguments
{
}

void Foo(int arg) // Version with a single int
{
}

void Foo(string arg1, double arg2) // Version with string and double parameters
{
}

Answer 2

First, you should know what is signature in programming. A signature of a function is its representation; the name of a function and its parameters determine its signature.

Overloading means changing the signature of a function to meet our needs.

Have a look at the following example:

int sum(int x, int y, int z) {
    return x + y + z;
}

int sum(int x, int y) {
    return x + y;
}

Now, the function sum() can be called through two different ways: Either you can call it with two arguments or you can call it with three arguments. you have changed its signature to meet your needs. Instead of writing a separate function for two arguments, you put the load on the same function, that is why this is known as overloading.

Answer 3

It's where you have a multitude of methods of the same name with different parameters.

public void kittens(String paws) {

}

public void kittens(String paws, boolean tail) {

}

Both can be called independently to one another with either

kittens("fat"); 

or

kittens("thin", true);

Answer 4

The context in this case is determined by the argument signature of the method, i.e. the number and type of the arguments.

For example:

methodName(int x, int y, int w, int h)
methodName(Vector x)

The first method implementation would be an alternative to:

methodName(new Vector(x, y, w, h))

Answer 5

Is the ability of some languages to create methods/function with the same name but that differ for input / otput parameters.

A classical example is the class constructor overloading example in Java:

  //Constructor without parameters
  public User() {
  }

 //Constructor with only one parameter
 public User(String username)
 {
 this.username = username;
 }

 //Constructor with two parameters
 public User(String username, int age)
 {
   this.username=username;
   this.age=age;
 }

You have a class with different constructors that accept different parameters, as you see they differ in their signature.