Overloading the Name of a Function

Because Dynamic Server supports routine overloading, you can define more than one function with the same name, but different parameter lists. You might want to overload functions in the following situations:

• You create a user-defined function with the same name as a built-in function (such as equal( )) to process a new user-defined data type.
• You create type hierarchies, in which subtypes inherit data representation and functions from supertypes.
• You create distinct types, which are data types that have the same internal storage representation as an existing data type, but have different names and cannot be compared to the source type without casting. Distinct types inherit support functions from their source types.

For a brief description of the routine signature that uniquely identifies each user-defined function, see Routine Overloading and Naming UDRs with a Routine Signature (IDS).

Using the SPECIFIC Clause to Specify a Specific Name

You can declare a specific name, unique to the database, for a user-defined function. A specific name is useful when you are overloading a function.