Question

The only way I know to do function/method overloading is by way of the base class. Is there a way to do it with in the same class with no inheritance?

---

Here is an example of the only way I know to do function overloading by way of inheriting the base class:

@interface class1:  NSObject
-(void) print;
@end

@implementation class1
-(void) print
{
    NSLog(@"Hello there");
}
@end



@interface  class2: class1
-(void) print: (int) x;
@end

@implementation class2
-(void) print: (int) x
{
    NSLog(@"Your number is %d", x);
}
@end



int main(void)
{
    class2 *c2 = [class2 new];

    [c2 print];
    [c2 print: 5];
}

---

result:

Hello there
Your number is 5

Answer 1

In Objective-C, you cannot overload a function to take different kinds of arguments. For example, the following two methods would not work:

- (NSString *) someStringBasedOnANumber:(int)aNumber{
    //some code here
}

- (NSString *) someStringBasedOnANumber:(double)aNumber{
    //some code here
}

The simplest solution would be to change the method name to follow Apple’s method naming convention and rename the methods like so:

- (NSString *) someStringBasedOnAnInt:(int)aNumber{
    //some code here
}

- (NSString *) someStringBasedOnADouble:(double)aNumber{
    //some code here
}

Method names are supposed to be descriptive of the the method’s arguments. Overloading goes against this convention, so it would make sense that it’s not allowed.