Does Go Support Function or Method Overloading?

Function and Method Overloading in Go

Problem Description

When porting a C library to Go, a developer encountered an error while attempting to define Go methods with the same name but different signatures. Specifically, the error message "Go Language·SetOption redeclared in this block" appeared. This prompted the developer to question whether Go supports function or method overloading.

Go's stance on overloading

Go does not support function or method overloading. This decision is elaborated in the Go Language FAQ, particularly in the section on overloading:

"Method dispatch is simplified if it doesn't need to do type matching as well. Experience with other languages told us that having a variety of methods with the same name but different signatures was occasionally useful, but it could also be confusing and fragile in practice. Matching only by name and requiring consistency in the types was a major simplifying decision in Go's type system."

Simulating overloading with variadic functions

While Go does not have traditional overloading, it is possible to simulate some of its functionality using variadic functions, which were introduced in later versions of the language. Variadic functions allow for the passing of an arbitrary number of arguments to a function. However, this approach comes with a trade-off, as it diminishes type checking.

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