How to overload methods

• When two or more methods have the same name but different parameter lists, the methods are overloaded.
• It's common to use overloaded methods to provide two or more versions of a method that work with different data types or that supply default values for omitted parameters.

Example 1: A method that accepts one argument

public void printToConsole(String sep)
{
    System.out.println(code + sep + description + sep + price);
}

Example 2: An overloaded method that provides a default value

public void printToConsole()
{
    printToConsole("|"); // this calls the method in example 1
}

Example 3: An overloaded method with two arguments

public void printToConsole(String sep, boolean printLineAfter)
{
    printToConsole(sep); // this calls the method in example 1
    if (printLineAfter)
        System.out.println();
}

Code that calls the PrintToConsole methods

Product p = ProductDB.getProduct("java");

p.printToConsole();
p.printToConsole("    ", true);
p.printToConsole("    ");

The console