Book Image

Learning Object-Oriented Programming

By : Gaston C. Hillar
Book Image

Learning Object-Oriented Programming

By: Gaston C. Hillar

Overview of this book

Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Learning Object-Oriented Programming
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Understanding method overloading and overriding


Some programming languages allow you to define a method with the same name multiple times by passing different arguments. This feature is known as method overloading. In some cases, we can overload a constructor. However, it is very important to mention that a similar effect can be achieved with optional parameters or default values for specific arguments.

For example, we can take advantage of method overloading in a programming language that supports it to define multiple instances of the bark method. However, it is very important to avoid code duplication when we overload methods.

Sometimes, we define a method in a class and know that a subclass may need to provide a different instance of this method. When a subclass provides a different implementation of a method defined in a superclass with the same name, same arguments, and same return type, we say that we have overridden a method. When we override a method, the implementation in the subclass...