Try to describe polymorphism as easy as you can

Question

How can polymorphism be described in an easy-to-understand way?

We can find a lot of information about the subject on the Internet and books, like in Type polymorphism. But let's try to make it as simple as we can.

Solution 1

This is from my answer from a similiar question. Here's an example of polymorphism in pseudo-C#/Java:

class Animal
{
    abstract string MakeNoise ();
}

class Cat : Animal {
    string MakeNoise () {
        return "Meow";
    }
}

class Dog : Animal {
    string MakeNoise () {
        return "Bark";
    }
}

Main () {
   Animal animal = Zoo.GetAnimal ();
   Console.WriteLine (animal.MakeNoise ());
}

The Main() method doesn't know the type of the animal and depends on a particular implementation's behavior of the MakeNoise() method.

Solution 2

Two objects respond to the same message with different behaviors; the sender doesn't have to care.

Solution 3

Every Can with a simple pop lid opens the same way.
As a human, you know that you can Open() any such can you find.

When opened, not all cans behave the same way.
Some contain nuts, some contain fake snakes that pop out.
The result depends on what TYPE of can, if the can was a "CanOfNuts" or a "CanOfSnakes", but this has no bearing on HOW you open it. You just know that you may open any Can, and will get some sort of result that is decided based on what type of Can it was that you opened.

pUnlabledCan->Open(); //might give nuts, might give snakes. We don't know till we call it

Open() has a generic return type of "Contents" (or we might decide no return type), so that open always has the same function signature.

You, the human, are the user/caller.
Open() is the virtual/polymorphic function.
"Can" is the abstract base class.
CanOfNuts and CanOfSnakes are the polymorphic children of the "Can" class.
Every Can may be opened, but what specifically it does and what specific tye of contents it returns are defined by what sort of can it is.
All that you know when you see pUnlabledCan is that you may Open() it, and it will return the contents. Any other behaviors (such as popping snakes in your face) are decided by the specific Can.

Solution 4

The simplest description of polymorphism is that it is a way to reduce if/switch statements.

It also has the benefit of allowing you to extend your if/switch statements (or other people's ones) without modifying existing classes.

For example consider the Stream class in .NET. Without polymorphism it would be a single massive class where each method implements a switch statement something like:

public class Stream
{
    public int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
    {
        if (this.mode == "file")
        {
            // behave like a file stream
        }
        else if (this.mode == "network")
        {
            // behave like a network stream
        }
        else // etc.
    }
}

Instead we allow the runtime to do the switching for us in a more efficient way, by automatically choosing the implementation based on the concrete type (FileStream, NetworkStream), e.g.

public class FileStream : Stream
{
    public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
    {
        // behave like a file stream
    }
}

public class NetworkStream : Stream
{
    public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
    {
        // behave like a network stream
    }
}

Solution 5

Poly: many
Morphism: forms / shapes

View more solutions