Kotlin overloading

Overload

If you are coming from C++, this may be familiar to you. The term Overload refers to the name of a function with the same name, but different numbers of parameters.

fun f() = 0
fun f(n: Int) = n
fun f(n: Int, m: Int) = n * m

Why is overloading useful?

Why is overloading useful? It allows you to express “variations on a theme” more clearly than if you were forced to use different function names. Compare these two options:

Option 1

fun addInt(a: Int, b: Int) = a + b
fun addDouble(a: Double, b: Double) = a + b

Option 2

fun add(a: Int, b: Int) = a + b
fun add(a: Double, b: Double) = a + b

Without overloading, you can’t just name the operation add(). With these two options, the overloaded add() is much cleaner.

Conclusion

The lack of overloading in a programming language is not a terrible hardship, but this feature provides valuable simplification, producing more readable code.