ad-hoc polymorphism

1 definition found

ad-hoc polymorphism - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  overloading
  ad-hoc polymorphism
  operator overloading
  
     <language> (Or "Operator overloading").  Use of a single
     symbol to represent operators with different argument types,
     e.g. "-", used either, as a monadic operator to negate an
     expression, or as a dyadic operator to return the difference
     between two expressions.  Another example is "+" used to add
     either integers or floating-point numbers.  Overloading is
     also known as ad-hoc polymorphism.
  
     User-defined operator overloading is provided by several
     modern programming languages, e.g. C++'s class system and
     the functional programming language Haskell's type class
     es.
  
     (1995-04-30)