Python function overloading

The @overload decorator was added with type hints (PEP 484).

While this doesn't change the behaviour of Python, it does make it easier to understand what is going on, and for mypy to detect errors.

See: Type hints and PEP 484

It is impossible by definition to overload a function in python (read on for details), but you can achieve something similar with a simple decorator

class overload:
    def __init__(self, f):
        self.cases = {}

    def args(self, *args):
        def store_function(f):
            self.cases[tuple(args)] = f
            return self
        return store_function

    def __call__(self, *args):
        function = self.cases[tuple(type(arg) for arg in args)]
        return function(*args)

You can use it like this

@overload
def f():
    pass

@f.args(int, int)
def f(x, y):
    print('two integers')

@f.args(float)
def f(x):
    print('one float')


f(5.5)
f(1, 2)

Modify it to adapt it to your use case.

A clarification of concepts

• function dispatch: there are multiple functions with the same name. Which one should be called? two strategies
• static/compile-time dispatch (aka. "overloading"). decide which function to call based on the compile-time type of the arguments. In all dynamic languages, there is no compile-time type, so overloading is impossible by definition
• dynamic/run-time dispatch: decide which function to call based on the runtime type of the arguments. This is what all OOP languages do: multiple classes have the same methods, and the language decides which one to call based on the type of self/this argument. However, most languages only do it for the this argument only. The above decorator extends the idea to multiple parameters.

To clear up, assume that we define, in a hypothetical static language, the functions

void f(Integer x):
    print('integer called')

void f(Float x):
    print('float called')

void f(Number x):
    print('number called')


Number x = new Integer('5')
f(x)
x = new Number('3.14')
f(x)

With static dispatch (overloading) you will see "number called" twice, because x has been declared as Number, and that's all overloading cares about. With dynamic dispatch you will see "integer called, float called", because those are the actual types of x at the time the function is called.

Python 3.8 added functools.singledispatchmethod

Transform a method into a single-dispatch generic function.

To define a generic method, decorate it with the @singledispatchmethod decorator. Note that the dispatch happens on the type of the first non-self or non-cls argument, create your function accordingly:

from functools import singledispatchmethod


class Negator:
    @singledispatchmethod
    def neg(self, arg):
        raise NotImplementedError("Cannot negate a")

    @neg.register
    def _(self, arg: int):
        return -arg

    @neg.register
    def _(self, arg: bool):
        return not arg


negator = Negator()
for v in [42, True, "Overloading"]:
    neg = negator.neg(v)
    print(f"{v=}, {neg=}")

Output

v=42, neg=-42
v=True, neg=False
NotImplementedError: Cannot negate a

@singledispatchmethod supports nesting with other decorators such as @classmethod. Note that to allow for dispatcher.register, singledispatchmethod must be the outer most decorator. Here is the Negator class with the neg methods being class bound:

from functools import singledispatchmethod


class Negator:
    @singledispatchmethod
    @staticmethod
    def neg(arg):
        raise NotImplementedError("Cannot negate a")

    @neg.register
    def _(arg: int) -> int:
        return -arg

    @neg.register
    def _(arg: bool) -> bool:
        return not arg


for v in [42, True, "Overloading"]:
    neg = Negator.neg(v)
    print(f"{v=}, {neg=}")

Output:

v=42, neg=-42
v=True, neg=False
NotImplementedError: Cannot negate a

The same pattern can be used for other similar decorators: staticmethod, abstractmethod, and others.

You can achieve this with the following Python code:

@overload
def test(message: str):
    return message

@overload
def test(number: int):
    return number + 1

You can easily implement function overloading in Python. Here is an example using floats and integers:

class OverloadedFunction:
    def __init__(self):
        self.D = {int: self.f_int, float: self.f_float}
    
    def __call__(self, x):
        return self.D[type(x)](x)
    
    def f_int(self, x):
        print('Integer Function')
        return x**2
    
    def f_float(self, x):
        print('Float Function (Overloaded)')
        return x**3

# f is our overloaded function
f = OverloadedFunction()

print(f(3 ))
print(f(3.))

# Output:
# Integer Function
# 9
# Float Function (Overloaded)
# 27.0

The main idea behind the code is that a class holds the different (overloaded) functions that you would like to implement, and a Dictionary works as a router, directing your code towards the right function depending on the input type(x).

PS1. In case of custom classes, like Bullet1, you can initialize the internal dictionary following a similar pattern, such as self.D = {Bullet1: self.f_Bullet1, ...}. The rest of the code is the same.

PS2. The time/space complexity of the proposed solution is fairly good as well, with an average cost of O(1) per operation.

Plum supports it in a straightforward pythonic way. Copying an example from the README below.

from plum import dispatch

@dispatch
def f(x: str):
    return "This is a string!"
    

@dispatch
def f(x: int):
    return "This is an integer!"

>>> f("1")
'This is a string!'

>>> f(1)
'This is an integer!'

You can also try this code. We can try any number of arguments

# Finding the average of given number of arguments
def avg(*args):   # args is the argument name we give
    sum = 0
    for i in args:
        sum += i
        average = sum/len(args)   # Will find length of arguments we given
    print("Avg: ", average)

# call function with different number of arguments
avg(1,2)
avg(5,6,4,7)
avg(11,23,54,111,76)