method overloading in a class

[Ashley Sheridan <ash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi list,

I know that some languages such as C++ can overload functions and
methods by declaring the method again with a different number of
arguments, and the compiler internally sorts things out, but I can't
seem to find a similar way to do this with PHP.

Basically, what I've got at the moment is a class method with 2
arguments, and I need to be able to overload the method with 3
arguments. The following which would work in other languages doesn't
seem to bring any joy in PHP:

class foo
{
    public function bar($arg1, $arg2)
   {
        // do something with $arg1 & $arg2
    }

    public function bar($arg1, $arg2, $arg3)
    {
        // do something different with all 3 args
    }
}

Is there any feasible way of doing this? The method names really need to
remain the same as they exist as part of a framework, but the arguments
really server quite different purposes between the two methods, so
there's no nice way of just merging the two functions without breaking
the naming conventions, etc used.

Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk