What is function overloading and overriding in php?

php overloading overriding
Parag picture Parag · Jun 8, 2010 · Viewed 245.1k times · Source

In PHP, what do you mean by function overloading and function overriding. and what is the difference between both of them? couldn't figure out what is the difference between them.

Answer

Jacob Relkin picture Jacob Relkin · Jun 8, 2010

Overloading is defining functions that have similar signatures, yet have different parameters. Overriding is only pertinent to derived classes, where the parent class has defined a method and the derived class wishes to override that method.

In PHP, you can only overload methods using the magic method __call.

An example of overriding:

<?php

class Foo {
   function myFoo() {
      return "Foo";
   }
}

class Bar extends Foo {
   function myFoo() {
      return "Bar";
   }
}

$foo = new Foo;
$bar = new Bar;
echo($foo->myFoo()); //"Foo"
echo($bar->myFoo()); //"Bar"
?>

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