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Python allows operator overloading through the implementation of methods with special names. [48] For example, the addition (+) operator can be overloaded by implementing the method obj.__add__(self, other). Ruby allows operator overloading as syntactic sugar for simple method calls.
Polymorphism can be distinguished by when the implementation is selected: statically (at compile time) or dynamically (at run time, typically via a virtual function). This is known respectively as static dispatch and dynamic dispatch, and the corresponding forms of polymorphism are accordingly called static polymorphism and dynamic polymorphism.
In some programming languages, function overloading or method overloading is the ability to create multiple 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 ...
Polymorphism is the phenomenon wherein somewhat interchangeable objects each expose an operation of the same name but possibly differing in behavior. As an example, a File object and a Database object both have a StoreRecord method that can be used to write a personnel record to storage. Their implementations differ.
Multiple dispatch can be added to Python using a library extension. For example, using the module multimethod.py [13] and also with the module multimethods.py [14] which provides CLOS-style multimethods for Python without changing the underlying syntax or keywords of the language.
Impredicative polymorphism (also called first-class polymorphism) is the most powerful form of parametric polymorphism. [1]: 340 In formal logic, a definition is said to be impredicative if it is self-referential; in type theory, it refers to the ability for a type to be in the domain of a quantifier it contains. This allows the instantiation ...
We then iterate over one of the lists (SHAPE), allowing elements of the other (SURFACE) to visit each of them in turn. In the example code above, SURFACE objects are visiting SHAPE objects. The code makes a polymorphic call on {SURFACE}.draw indirectly by way of the `drawing_agent', which is the first call (dispatch) of the double-dispatch pattern.
The previous section notwithstanding, there are other ways in which ad hoc polymorphism can work out. Consider for example the Smalltalk language. In Smalltalk, the overloading is done at run time, as the methods ("function implementation") for each overloaded message ("overloaded function") are resolved when they are about to be executed.