Question

Java: What is method overloading?

An example would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Method Overloading:

The method overloading means we can have multiple methods with the same name but the number of arguments or the types of arguments must be different.

Example 1:

Suppose the below two methods belong to the same class.

The first method will take two integer arguments as input and will return the sum of integer arguments.

The second method will take two float arguments as input and will return the sum of float argument.

int add(int a, int b)
{
int sum;
sum = a+b;
return sum;
}

float add(float a, float b)
{
float sum;
sum = a+b;
return sum;
}

Both methods have the same name but the type of argument is different. This is known as method overloading.

Example 2:

Suppose the below two methods belong to the same class.

The first method will take two integer arguments as input and will return the sum of two integer arguments.

The second method will take three integer arguments as input and will return the sum of three integer arguments.

int add(int a, int b)
{
int sum;
sum = a+b;
return sum;
}

int add(int a, int b, int c)
{
int sum;
sum = a+b+c;
return sum;
}

Both methods have the same name but the number of arguments is different. This is known as method overloading.