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8.3 ORDER DEPENDENCE OF GENERIC FUNCTION DEFINITIONS

If a construct which uses a system or user-defined external function is loaded before a generic function which uses that function as an implicit method, all calls to that function from that construct will bypass the generic dispatch. For example, if a generic function which overloads the "+" operator is defined after a rule which uses the "+" operator, that rule will always call the "+" system function directly. However, similar rules defined after the generic function will use the generic dispatch.


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