RE: Overloading in RPG

[Gwecnal@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated Thu, 10 May 2001 14:40:44 -0500,  "Bartell, Aaron L. (TC)" 
<ALBartell@taylorcorp.com> writes:

>  Exactly!  Basically they are entirely different but they all have the same
>  name.  Maybe the examples given here are bad examples but there is
>  definitely a place for overloading in RPG.  Lets say I want to look up a
>  customer information record. Sometimes I only have the last name of the
>  customer, and sometimes I have the actual customer number, but I could call
>  #GetCustInfo with either the Last name or the customer number.  i.e.
>  #GetCustInfo(LastName) or #GetCustInfo(CustNo).  Do you see the advantage?

No.  Here I would definitely want #GetCustInfoNo(CustNo) and 
#GetCustInfoName(LastName) as different functions.  They would use different
access paths, one would just chain and return Yes/No the other would do a 
fuzzy soundex search and return a 'most likely to least likely' subfile to 
select from - TOTALLY different functionality for ENTIRELY different 
application.

I would turn your assertion upside down and say this: 'If you have a function
that you think it would make sense to overload, you have not done your
functional decomposition right and have misnamed your function.'  

Properly named and designed functions are not tempting targets for 
overloading.
It is only functions called DoWhatIMean(WhatIGiveYou) that lend themselves
to that particular nightmare.
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