Procedure Names in Dynamic Server

Because Dynamic Server offers routine overloading, you can define more than one user-defined routine (UDR) with the same name, but different parameter lists. You might want to overload UDRs in the following situations:

• You create a UDR with the same name as a built-in routine (such as equal( )) to process a new user-defined data type.
• You create type hierarchies in which subtypes inherit data representation and UDRs 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 UDRs from their source types.

For a brief description of the routine signature that uniquely identifies each UDR, 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 that is unique in the database for a user-defined procedure. A specific name is useful when you are overloading a procedure.