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Explanatory Question

What is method overloading in C#?

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Answer with Explanation

Method overloading is mechanism to create multiple methods with the same name and unique signature in the same class. When you go for compilation, the compiler uses overload resolution to determine the specific method to be invoked.

With method overloading, multiple methods can have the same name with different parameters:

Example

int MyMethod(int x)
float MyMethod(float x)
double MyMethod(double x, double y)

Consider the following example, which have two methods that add numbers of different type:

Example

using System;

namespace MyApplication
{
  class Program
  {
    static int PlusMethodInt(int x, int y)
    {
      return x + y;
    }

    static double PlusMethodDouble(double x, double y)
    {
      return x + y;
    }

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      int myNum1 = PlusMethodInt(8, 5);
      double myNum2 = PlusMethodDouble(4.3, 6.26);
      Console.WriteLine("Int: " + myNum1);
      Console.WriteLine("Double: " + myNum2);
    }  
  }
}

Output

Int: 13
Double: 10.559999999999999

Instead of defining two methods that should do the same thing, it is better to overload one. In the example below, we overload the PlusMethod method to work for both int and double:

Example

using System;

namespace MyApplication
{
  class Program
  {
    static int PlusMethod(int x, int y)
    {
      return x + y;
    }

    static double PlusMethod(double x, double y)
    {
      return x + y;
    }

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      int myNum1 = PlusMethod(8, 5);
      double myNum2 = PlusMethod(4.3, 6.26);
      Console.WriteLine("Int: " + myNum1);
      Console.WriteLine("Double: " + myNum2);
    }  
  }
}

Output

Int: 13
Double: 10.559999999999999

Note: Multiple methods can have the same name as long as the number and/or type of parameters are different.