Does Go Support Function Overloading, and If Not, What are the Alternatives?

Function/Method Overloading in Go

Function overloading is a technique where multiple functions with the same name but different signatures can coexist in the same scope. In C , for example, it is possible to define different versions of a function with different parameter types:

void func(int param);
void func(char* param);

However, this is not supported in the Go programming language.

Error in Code

The error you encounter when trying to define overloaded functions in Go stems from the language's design decision to emphasize type safety. Overloaded functions can introduce ambiguity and type-checking issues, which Go aims to avoid.

Solution

To address this issue when porting your C library to Go, create a separate wrapper function for each unique signature of the original C function:

func curl_wrapper_easy_setopt_str(CURL *curl, CURLoption option, char* param)
func curl_wrapper_easy_setopt_long(CURL *curl, CURLoption option, long param)

This approach ensures type safety and prevents ambiguity in code.

Go's Approach to Optional Arguments

While Go does not directly support function overloading, it provides a mechanism for simulating optional arguments using variadic functions. For example, the following function takes an arbitrary number of integers and sums them:

func sum(args ...int) int {
    result := 0
    for _, arg := range args {
        result += arg
    }
    return result
}

However, it is important to note that variadic functions come at the cost of type checking, as the compiler cannot verify the types of the arguments passed to the function.

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