From: Chris Uzdavinis <chris@...>
Date: 2001-05-08T08:11:24+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:14828] Re: Polymorphic methods

"J J" <jj5412@earthlink.net> writes:

> In C++ you can have polymorphic methods such as
> 
> doIt( String s ) {
> ...
> }
> 
> doIt( Integer i ) {
> ...
> }

That's not polymorphism, that's function overloading.  :)


> I'm thinking of instances (for example) where you can create an object from
> several different objects passed to the constructor. E.g.
> 
> m = Month.new(12)
> m = Month.new('December')
> m = Month.new(anotherMonth)
> 
> thus, Month.initialize has to have a case or if statement.
> 
> Thanks in advance!

I'd like to know how to do that in ruby too, but my impression is that
you just have to test the type.  A hash may be faster than a linear
search if you have lots of potential types, but it's still testing
type.  But if there is a way (and I'm often surprised by ruby's
capabilitiess), that would be useful.

-- 
Chris