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Polymorphic dispatch is the specific reason for polymorphism in Object-Oriented Programming. It is more generically known as "dynamic dispatch": http://en.wiki

• Dn_Ab 12y ago
  Dynamic dispatch is a special case of predicate dispatch. In particular, captainmuon pointed out that: >Pattern matching in functional languages solves this in a different way. captainmuon wanted a more flexible way of dispatching on types similar to what can be done with Pattern matching (which is also a special case of predicate dispatch). In the post I linked to above this example is given: Basically, instead of basing the dispatch on an "is_a" check, you check whether a general predicate is valid on the argument. So, in imaginary syntax instead of writing int foo( int a, int b): if a > 0 return a else return b-a you'd write: int foo ( gt_zero? a, int b): return a int foo ( int a, int b): return b