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Generic Function




In certain systems for Object-oriented Programming such as the Common Lisp Object System and Dylan , a generic function is an entity made up of all methods having the same name.

Generic functions correspond roughly to what Smalltalk calls messages; but when a generic function is called, method dispatch occurs on the basis of all arguments, not just a single privileged one. See under Multiple Dispatch for more. This is also known as a Multimethod .

Another, completely separate definition of generic function is a function that uses parametric polymorphism. This is the definition used when working with a language like OCaml . An example of a generic function is
id: a->a
let id a = a
which takes an argument of any type and returns something of that same type.