Function overloading advantage..

Question

Hi,
One of the package feature is function overloading i.e same name objects with different parameters or different datatype parameters.
how does it(function overloading) increase the performance ?
what are the benefits with function overloading ?
Thanks in advance.
RP

Answer 1

how does it(function overloading) increase the performance ?It doesn't.
what are the benefits with function overloading ?Consider this:
SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE pkg AS
  2     PROCEDURE print(p IN VARCHAR2);
  3     PROCEDURE print(p IN DATE, msk IN VARCHAR2 := 'DD-MON-YYYY');
  4     PROCEDURE print(p IN NUMBER);
  5     PROCEDURE print(p IN VARCHAR2, totem IN VARCHAR2);
  6  END;
  7  /
Package created.
SQL>
SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY  pkg AS
  2   PROCEDURE print(p IN VARCHAR2) IS
  3   BEGIN
  4    dbms_output.put_line(p||'!');
  5   END;
  6   PROCEDURE print(p IN DATE, msk IN VARCHAR2 := 'DD-MON-YYYY' ) IS
  7   BEGIN
  8    print(to_char(p, msk));
  9   END;
10   PROCEDURE print(p IN NUMBER) IS
11   BEGIN
12    print(to_char(p));
13   END;
14   PROCEDURE print(p IN VARCHAR2, totem IN VARCHAR2) IS
15   BEGIN
16    print(totem||' '||p);
17   END;
18  END;
19  /
Package body created.
SQL>
SQL> set serveroutput on
SQL>
SQL> exec pkg.print(user)
B!
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> exec pkg.print(sysdate)
07-MAR-2006!
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> exec pkg.print(sysdate, 'HH24:MI:SS')
11:18:59!
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> exec pkg.print(1234)
1234!
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> exec pkg.print(user, '>>>')
B!PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> exec pkg.print(to_char(sysdate), 'HH24:MI:SS')
HH24:MI:SS 07-MAR-06!
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> I can pass any value into my package without having to worry about its datatype. Similarly I can pass different numbers of arguments into the procedure without worrying. Of course, a similar effect can be gained from using default values but we don't always want that.
Incidentally, note what happened when I passed in a date as a character string.
Cheers, APC