Question

Are there really any significant advantages to overload methods?

Let’s consider the following example:

class SillyMath
{
    public static int Plus(int number1, int number2)
    {
        return Plus(number1, number2, 0);
    }

    public static int Plus(int number1, int number2, int number3)
    {
        return Plus(number1, number2, number3, 0);
    }

    public static int Plus(int number1, int number2, int number3, int number4)
    {
        return number1 + number2 + number3 + number4;
    }
}

Wouldn’t it be easier to just use parameters with default values?

public static int Plus(int number1, int number2, int number3 = 0, int number4 = 0)
        {
            return number1 + number2 + number3 + number4;
        }

1. So can anyone tell me why would I bother considering overloads when programming?

2. And what if I need to throw in some conditional statements? Would overloading still be relevant?

EDIT: Also, meanwhile I learned that overloads can also have different return types. In my opinion that is something that makes overloads worthy of consideration.

Answer 1

One reason might be to make what appears to be a single method that takes a variety of different inputs. For example, BinaryWriter.Write having the following overloads (and a couple others):

Write(Boolean)
Write(Byte) 
Write(Byte[])   
Write(Char) 
Write(Char[])   
Write(Decimal)  
Write(Double)   
Write(Int16)    
Write(Int32)    
Write(Int64)    
Write(SByte)    
Write(Single)   
Write(String)   
Write(UInt16)   
Write(UInt32)   
Write(UInt64)

Allowing you to write code like:

bool   value1 = true;
int    value2 = 5;
double value3 = 5.5;
byte   value4 = 1;

using (BinaryWriter writer = GetABinaryWriter())
{
   writer.Write(value1);
   writer.Write(value2);
   writer.Write(value3);
   writer.Write(value4);
}