Overriding Methods in Swift Protocol Extensions

Swift protocol extensions use different method dispatch rules, which often leads to a confusion.

Method dispatch refers to how a method is addressed in memory. Static dispatch means at compile time; dynamic dispatch means at runtime.

Here are the two important rules about Swift protocol extensions methods:

1. Protocol requirements use dynamic dispatch.
2. Protocol members use static dispatch.

You can see both at work in this example:

protocol P {
    func foo() // protocol requirement
}

extension P {
    func foo() { print("P.foo") }
    func bar() { print("P.bar") } // protocol member
}

struct A : P {
    func foo() { print("A.foo") }
    func bar() { print("A.bar") }
}

let a = A()
a.foo() // A.foo
a.bar() // A.bar

let p: P = A()
p.foo() // A.foo <--- dynamic dispatch
p.bar() // P.bar <--- static dispatch

The important highlight is that p uses dynamic dispatch for its method foo() and static dispatch for its method bar().