Attaining multiple dispatch in widespread object-oriented languages

  1. Francisco Ortin 1
  2. Jose Quiroga 1
  3. J. M. Redondo
  4. Miguel Garcia 1
  1. 1 Computer Science Department, University of Oviedo, Spain
Revue:
DYNA: revista de la Facultad de Minas. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Sede Medellín

ISSN: 0012-7353

Année de publication: 2014

Volumen: 81

Número: 186

Pages: 242-250

Type: Article

DOI: 10.15446/DYNA.V81N186.40428 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAccès ouvert editor

D'autres publications dans: DYNA: revista de la Facultad de Minas. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Sede Medellín

Résumé

Multiple dispatch allows determining the actual method to be executed, depending on the dynamic types of its arguments. Although some programming languages provide multiple dispatch, most widespread object-oriented languages lack this feature. Therefore, different implementation techniques are commonly used to obtain multiple dispatch in these languages. We evaluate the existing approaches, presenting a new one based on hybrid dynamic and static typing. A qualitative evaluation is presented, considering factors such as software maintainability and readability, code size, parameter generalization, and compile-time type checking. We also perform a quantitative assessment of runtime performance and memory consumption.

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