Why was function overloading added to C++?

Question

I have a C background. I was just wondering why was function overloading added to C++? C doesn\'t have function overloading but C++ does, what was the need for it?

What

Answer 1

Try to come up with a comfortable way to construct objects if it weren't for function overloading.

std::string foo = "bar";
std::vector< std::string > myStringVector;
myStringVector.push_back( std::string() );
myStringVector.push_back( std::string( "hello" ) );
myStringVector.push_back( std::string( foo ) );

A nonsense example, of course, but it illustrates the point.

Another point would be template programming. You could not come up with generic templates if you had to have a different function name for each parameter type.