Function overloading in SV - workaround?

SystemVerilog
1

I understand function overloading is not supported in SV, wish it is - or atleast as a new feature maybe? Now, back to reality - I am looking at implementing some common math functions such as mean. Say it has to work on vector and matrix (as in typical Matlab). I have few workarounds that I’ve done earlier for same, but am looking at improving the same. Basically I am using a parameterized class and static function to sort of mimic function overloading. But compiler throws error as below. So how do I write code that depends on “type” of the arguments to a class method?

Thanks

Sample code below. In the method mean I need to decide/delcare the rval to be a single real number of a dyn-array based on input type - being vector/matrix (1-d or 2-d dyn array respectively).


package p;
  timeunit 1ns; timeprecision 1ns;

  typedef real ml_vec_t[];
  typedef real ml_matrix_t[][];
  typedef real ml_mda_t[][][];
  typedef enum bit [1:0] {
    ML_MEAN_ROW, ML_MEAN_COL, ML_MEAN_ALL} ml_mean_dim_t;


  class MathLibVec #(
      type INP_T = ml_vec_t,
      type OUT_T = ml_vec_t,
      type MOD_T = ml_vec_t
  );

    static function OUT_T mean(INP_T in_val, 
      ml_mean_dim_t dim = ML_MEAN_COL);

      OUT_T rval;
      int num_upk_dim;
      int num_rows;
      int num_cols;

      num_upk_dim = $unpacked_dimensions (in_val);

      if (num_upk_dim == 2) begin : ml_matrix
        num_rows = in_val.size();
        num_cols = in_val[0].size();
        rval = new [num_cols];
      end : ml_matrix


      return rval;
    endfunction : mean
  endclass

endpackage : p

module m;
  import p::*;

  typedef int int_darr_1d_t [];
  typedef int int_darr_2d_t [] [];
  int_darr_1d_t  ida_1d;
  int_darr_2d_t  ida_2d;
  ml_vec_t m_rda_1d;

  initial begin
    ida_1d = '{1,-2.1,3,4.2};
    m_rda_1d = MathLibVec #(int_darr_1d_t)::mean(ida_1d);
    #10 $finish (2);
  end
endmodule : m

Error:

# ** Error: (vsim-3701) ../src/sv_fn_olad.sv(29): 'size' is not a field or method in 'in_val[0]'.
#    Time: 0 ns  Iteration: 0  Region: /p::MathLibVec #(int$[], real$[], real$[]) File: ../src/sv_fn_olad.sv
# ** Error: (vsim-3701) ../src/sv_fn_olad.sv(29): 'size' is not a field or method in 'in_val[0]'.
#    Time: 0 ns  Iteration: 0  Region: /p::MathLibVec #(int$[], real$[], real$[]) File: ../src/sv_fn_olad.sv
# Error loading design