Re: Polymorphism vs. Overloading

Gabriela O. de Vivo <gdevivo@conicit.ve> wrote:


>Last week I was invited to join a Thesis (MsC) presentation.
>At some point a question raised about the exact difference between
>Polymorphism and Overloading.


The difference is purely syntactical. Calls to overloaded functions look,
well, like function calls. Calls to polymorphic functions require a dot or
'->' somewhere. Really, that's the only difference. Artificial semantic
restrictions placed by certain languages aside, you can always move the
identifier or address-expression from the left of the dot into the
parenthasis as the first argument to generate an equivelent overloaded
function call.


Next question: is there a difference between the functional language notion
of a polymorphic type and inheritance (other than functional language type
hierarchies being limited to one level)?
--
/* jhallen@world.std.com (192.74.137.5) */ /* Joseph H. Allen */
--

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.