Define same command with different amount of parameters

Question

I want to define two versions of the command \Set, depending if I provide one or two parameters. I.e. like this:

\newcommand{\Set}[1]{\bigl\{ #1 \bigr\}}
\newcommand{\Set}[2]{\bigl\{ #1 \bigm| #2 \bigr\}}

But that doesn't work. It complains about the redefinition of the command.

Answer 1

You can't "overload" macros in TeX like functions in other programming languages.

You can either define the macro to use a normal optional argument for one of the two parameters or define a special macro which looks ahead if a opening brace follows. The xparse package can help you defining one:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{xparse}

\NewDocumentCommand\Set{mg}{%
    \ensuremath{\bigl\{ #1 \IfNoValueTF{#2}{}{\bigm| #2} \bigr\}}%
}

\begin{document}

\[
\Set{A}{B}
\Set{A}
\]

\end{document}

Here the m in the definition stand for mandatory argument and the g for optional argument delimited by a TeX group, i.e. {}.