Re: overload resolution consistency

Cameron McCormack:
>> The simplest choice is probably to select the exactly matching
>> overload if there is one, otherwise to select the first overload
>> regardless of the types of the actual arguments. So for the above
>> example that would select f(object, object).

Simon Peters:
> interface HTMLOptionsCollection : HTMLCollection {
> void add(HTMLOptionElement element, optional HTMLElement? before);
> void add(HTMLOptGroupElement element, optional HTMLElement? before);
> void add(HTMLOptionElement element, long before);
> void add(HTMLOptGroupElement element, long before);
>
> (HTMLFormElement also has these variants.)
>
> Consider:
>
> options.add(document.createElement('optgroup'), "foo");
>
> (maybe the second argument comes from an <input type=number> and the
> author forgot to convert it from a string to an int.)

That's a good argument against the simple choice I proposed.

> interface CanvasRenderingContext2D {
> CanvasPattern createPattern(HTMLImageElement image, DOMString repetition);
> CanvasPattern createPattern(HTMLCanvasElement image, DOMString repetition);
> CanvasPattern createPattern(HTMLVideoElement image, DOMString repetition);
> void drawImage(HTMLImageElement image, double dx, double dy);
> void drawImage(HTMLImageElement image, double dx, double dy, double dw,
> double dh);
> void drawImage(HTMLImageElement image, double sx, double sy, double sw,
> double sh, double dx, double dy, double dw, double dh);
> void drawImage(HTMLCanvasElement image, double dx, double dy);
> void drawImage(HTMLCanvasElement image, double dx, double dy, double dw,
> double dh);
> void drawImage(HTMLCanvasElement image, double sx, double sy, double sw,
> double sh, double dx, double dy, double dw, double dh);
> void drawImage(HTMLVideoElement image, double dx, double dy);
> void drawImage(HTMLVideoElement image, double dx, double dy, double dw,
> double dh);
> void drawImage(HTMLVideoElement image, double sx, double sy, double sw,
> double sh, double dx, double dy, double dw, double dh);
>
> Consider using a <canvas> or <video> in the first argument, but using
> the wrong type in another argument.

Yes, fair enough.

> How does it work when there are different number of arguments?
>
> ImageData createImageData(double sw, double sh);
> ImageData createImageData(ImageData imagedata);

Elimination of candidate overloads due to number of arguments is done 
before looking at the types of values passed in.  So if you did

   createImageData(anImageData, 123);

this would select the first overload and convert anImageData to a double.

> [NoInterfaceObject]
> interface WindowTimers {
> long setTimeout(Function handler, optional long timeout, any... args);
> long setTimeout([AllowAny] DOMString handler, optional long timeout,
> any... args);
> long setInterval(Function handler, optional long timeout, any... args);
> long setInterval([AllowAny] DOMString handler, optional long timeout,
> any... args);
>
> This already uses [AllowAny], so the wrong type on the first argument
> would convert to DOMString. But what if the second argument is of the
> wrong type?
>
> interface WebSocket : EventTarget {
> void send(DOMString data);
> void send(ArrayBuffer data);
> void send(Blob data);
>
> This should probably convert to DOMString for other types.
>
> The above extracts are the overloads I found in the HTML spec. What they
> have in common is that the first argument is more important than the
> other arguments, such that we should try not to convert the first
> argument if it's of a matching type.

Yes.  I'd be reluctant to enshrine overload resolution that favours the 
first argument, though.  It seems just as likely that if you had

   interface A {
     void f(float x, Node y);
     void f(DOMString x, Blob y);
   };

then you'd want f("0", node) to select the first one.

Not sure what the right way forward is yet.

Received on Friday, 9 December 2011 01:30:45 UTC