Question

I’ve done plenty of Method Overloading, but now I have an instance where I would like to Overload a Property. The IDE in Visual Studio seems to allow it, since I can actually set up the two overloads, but I get an error saying it is not valid because they only differ in type. I think I’m missing something in my syntax?

I want to be able to use two (or more) different custom classes as the Type for my property.

Public Overloads Property myFlexibleProperty() As myCustomClass1
      Get
         Return _myFlexibleProperty1
      End Get
      Set(ByVal value As myCustomClass1)
         _myFlexibleProperty1 = value
      End Set
   End Property

   Public Overloads Property myFlexibleProperty() As myCustomClass2
      Get
         Return _myFlexibleProperty2
      End Get
      Set(ByVal value As myCustomClass2)
         _myFlexibleProperty2 = value
      End Set
   End Property

All of the help I have found so far has been concerning Overloading Methods. Despite what the IDE is letting me do, I’m beginning to think this is not possible?

Answer 1

To overload something–method or property–you need for it to accept a different set of parameters. Since properties in VB.NET can accept parameters, I guess you can overload them; but they have to be different.

So you could do this:

Public Overloads Readonly Property Average() As Double
Public Overloads Readonly Property Average(ByVal startIndex As Integer) As Double

But not this:

Public Overloads Readonly Property Average() As Double
Public Overloads Readonly Property Average() As Decimal