If you control both caller and callee: do not “override” functions by introducing a function with the same name
Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/22
Every now and then I see people “overriding” a function by introducing a function with the same name.
Often this raises a lot of confusion, because the override will only work if you have the unit of the override closer in your user scope.
Example:
Unit AdoOverrideUnit; interface function VarTypeToDataType(VarType: Integer): TFieldType; implementation uses Data.DB; function VarTypeToDataType(VarType: Integer): TFieldType; begin Result := Data.DB.VarTypeToDataType(VarType); // override Result for some ADO specific data management layer case. // ... end; end.
In this case it is much better to call the override AdoVarTypeToDataType instead of VarTypeToDataType.
Otherwise, when AdoOverrideUnit is not closer in scope than Data.DB, the wrong method will be called which is hard to track down.
–jeroen
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