why same method names in method overloading ?

[anish jain]

In method overloading, what is the advantage of using same method names other than readability ?

[Sona Patel]

whole point of method overloading is in keeping same name. If method name is same then we can call a single method and pass different types of values at runtime and JVM will take care of which method to call.
If method names are different then we have to decide which method to call for which type of value.

Hope it helps...

[Rob Spoor]

Start programming in C (which does not know function overloading) and ask again

Readability is the only answer. If method overloading would not be possible, you would get the following (taken from the GTK+ C API):

GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_file             (const gchar *filename);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_icon_set         (GtkIconSet *icon_set,
                                                         GtkIconSize size);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_image            (GdkImage *image,
                                                         GdkBitmap *mask);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_pixbuf           (GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_pixmap           (GdkPixmap *pixmap,
                                                         GdkBitmap *mask);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_stock            (const gchar *stock_id,
                                                         GtkIconSize size);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_animation        (GdkPixbufAnimation *animation);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_icon_name        (const gchar *icon_name,
                                                         GtkIconSize size);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new_from_gicon            (GIcon *icon,
                                                         GtkIconSize size);

If you allow method / function overloading you can get rid of all those "_from_XXX" parts:

GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (const gchar *filename);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (GtkIconSet *icon_set,
                                               GtkIconSize size);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (GdkImage *image,
                                               GdkBitmap *mask);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (GdkPixmap *pixmap,
                                               GdkBitmap *mask);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (const gchar *stock_id,
                                               GtkIconSize size);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (GdkPixbufAnimation *animation);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (const gchar *icon_name,
                                               GtkIconSize size);
GtkWidget*          gtk_image_new             (GIcon *icon,
                                               GtkIconSize size);

I surely would prefer the second set of functions.