Learning Julia

Multiple dispatch explained

In Chapter 2, Defining Functions, we introduced the concept of multiple dispatch in Julia, which is deeply integrated into the language. Here, we will extend the same topic to cover types.

To have a quick look at what multiple dispatch means in functions, here is the same code for a function that prints out the cube of a number:

julia> function calculate_cube(num::Int64) return num ^ 3 end calculate_cube (generic function with 1 method) julia> function calculate_cube(num::Float64) return num ^ 3 end calculate_cube (generic function with 2 methods) # 2 methods for generic function "calculate_cube": calculate_cube(num::Float64) at REPL[1]:2 calculate_cube(num::Int64) at REPL[1]:2 julia> calculate_cube(10) 1000 julia> ...