4 days ago
- Python does not support method overloading (multiple methods with same name but different signatures). Only the last definition of a method is kept.
- Python does support operator overloading using magic methods like __add__, allowing operators like '+' to work differently for different types.
- The '+' operator works for both addition (numbers) and concatenation (strings) because float and str classes define their own __add__ methods.
- To simulate method overloading, you can write a dispatching method that checks argument types with isinstance() or presence of arguments.
- Alternatively, Python's functools.singledispatch decorator can be used for simpler cases of dispatching based on the first argument's type.
- The term 'overloading' has two different meanings in Python: method overloading (not supported) and operator overloading (supported).