Function Overloading?

CAUTION: xTreme newbish question ahead!

The question is, how does python-ogre make:

sceneNode.translate(x, y, z)

and sceneNode.translate(Ogre.Vector3(x, y,z))

both valid?

AFAK, Python doesn't support function overloading in the same namespace. e.g. :
foo(x) and foo(x,y) in the same namespace.

Unless with a helper function that explicitly compares 'signatures' and calls different branches:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python ... chment.pot

The question is, how does python-ogre make:
sceneNode.translate(x, y, z)
and sceneNode.translate(Ogre.Vector3(x, y,z))
both valid?
In this case the answer is that we don't
In your example using Node.translate (sceneNode is based upon Node) there are overloaded "translate" functions in the C++ library - ie the Ogre C++ library has a version of "translate" that takes a Vector3, and another that takes 3 reals/floats. So when you make the call the Boost library goes looking for C++ functions that match the signature you are using (Vector3 or 3 reals) and uses the necessary function..

Now what Python-Ogre does do (thanks to some cool code from Roman) is to automatically convert from a list of 3 reals/floats to a Vector3 (and other types)

So if there is an underlying Ogre C++ function that only takes a Vector3 (or ColourValue, Vector2 etc) then you can pass it a Python list with the right number of floats and it will automajically (thanks to Boost/Roman) do the conversion..

Hope that helps

Andy

Oh, right. Stupid me!

Thanks for that.

I thought it was a good question........

I often have to stop and think about just how things work - especially as the project gets bigger

Cheers
Andy