Peace,
Marco

Thnaks
Tanvir.

I’m sorry I had to get it out of my chest.

Now, offering something constructive that hopefully highlights a bit more why the current language’s overloading facility lacks.

Sound software engineering principles will tell you “code to an interface, not an implementation”. Therefore if you want to create a generic Validator signature, you could just do something like this.

Interface Validator {
function setValues($values);
function isValid($values);
function isValid();
}

This specifies that the validator object can optionally receive data in its isValid method, but it’s not mandatory (maybe you’ve already set data previously with setValues()).

With this signature, you’re not forced to separately call setValid() and isValid(), but you’re not forced either to have an isValid method that absolutely requires to take in a parameter. Unfortunately due to PHP’s lack of true method overloading, you can’t define such an interface.

I can see people coming a mile away with stuff like

function isValid($array = null);

Wrong! Interface, remember? You should specify if the function takes a parameter or not.

The hacking spirit, rampant in PHP has had people used to McGyverish code where, instead of just directly working toward its primary goal, a function has to check the state of its parameters.

Lets say your interface define the signature as:

function isValid($array);

and that you implement as:

function isValid($array=null)
if($array){
$this->setValue($array);
}
$this->validate();
}

Even if you do this, you still won’t be able to call your method like

$myValidator->isValid();

because the Interface requires that isValid takes a parameter. You will be forced to do:

$myValidator->isValid(null);

Tell me this isn’t ugly.

(This code doesn’t compile, of course)
class AClass{
var $member;
static function myMethod() { echo “Static”; }
function myMethod() { echo $this->member; }
}
AClass::myMethod(); //Should display “Static”;
$obj = new AClass();
$obj->myMethod(); //Should display contents of $member

Unfortunately, in this example, there is no other way than renaming one (or both) methods.

PS. started 25 years ago in asm