What describes Overloading?

• A. A design pattern.
• B. A SQL operation.
• C. A security mechanism.
• D. The act of coding two or more methods with the same name but with different functionality.

Answer: (D)

Overloading is when you define multiple methods with the same name but different parameter lists, so the same operation can be performed in different ways depending on the arguments you pass. This lets the compiler choose the appropriate method implementation based on the types or number of arguments, enabling a form of compile-time polymorphism. For example, you might have methods named the same that handle a single integer, a string, or a pair of values, and calling the method with different arguments will invoke the corresponding version. It’s important to distinguish this from overriding, where a subclass provides its own version of a method with the same signature as one in its parent. Overloading is not a design pattern, a SQL operation, or a security mechanism.