Function overloading by return type?

Question

Why don't more mainstream statically typed languages support function/method overloading by return type? I can't think of any that do. It seems no less useful or reasonable than supporting overload by parameter type. How come it's so much less popular?

Answer 1

Most static languages also now support generics, which would solve your problem. As stated before, without having parameter diffs, there is not way to know which one to call. So if you want to do this, just use generics and call it a day.

Answer 2

For the record, Octave allows different outcome according to return element being scalar vs array.

x = min ([1, 3, 0, 2, 0])
   ⇒  x = 0

[x, ix] = min ([1, 3, 0, 2, 0])
   ⇒  x = 0
      ix = 3 (item index)

Cf also Singular Value Decomposition.