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SCALA Properties / classes
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Best "Everything Else" Article of October 2015 (Second Prize)
Sacha Barber, 16 Oct 2015
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Scala properties/classes
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In this post, we will be covering the very basics of how to create properties in our Scala classes, and also talk through how to create simple classes.
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Constructors
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Let’s start by creating a very simple class called “Person ” that will have a single constructor that takes a string for firstname and a string for lastname .
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The firstname and lastname should have getters but no setters.
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In Scala, this is achieved as follows: Hide Copy Code
Posted 16 Oct 2015
class Person(val firstName: String, val lastName: String) {
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} Which we may use like this: Hide Copy Code
object ClassesDemo { def main(args: Array[String]) = { val person = new Person("sacha","barber") val theirLastName = person.lastName System.out.print(s"Persons last name is $theirLastName") System.in.read() () } } See how we are using val, this means it is immutable, so we only expose a getter, no setter. If we wanted a getter and a setter, we would instead use var like this: We can also control the access modifiers directly in the constructor as follows: Hide Copy Code
class Person(val firstName: String, private var lastName: String) { } Which now causes a problem is we try and use the lastname field outside of the Person class:
Secondary Constructors As in .NET, it is possible to have multiple constructors. However, the rule in Scala is that any NON primary constructor MUST ALWAYS call the primary constructor. Here is an example using our simple Person class, which has a secondary constructor: Hide Copy Code
///Primary constructor class Person(var firstName: String, var lastName: String) { //secondary constructor def this(firstName: String) { this(firstName, "") } override def toString: String = { return s"firstname: $firstName, lastname: $lastName" } } Which we may use like this: Hide Copy Code
object ClassesDemo { def main(args: Array[String]) = { val person1 = new Person("sacha","barber") val person2 = new Person("ryan") System.out.print(s"Person1 is $person1\r\n") System.out.print(s"Person2 is $person2\r\n") System.in.read() () } } So that talks about how you might write constructors.
Get/Set Another thing we may want to add to our classes (outside of constructors) is properties. Here is our (by now famous) person class, rewritten to include a separate age property. Hide Copy Code
//Primary constructor class Person(var firstName: String, var lastName: String) { // Private age variable, renamed to _age private var _age = 0 var name = "" // Getter def age = _age // Setter def age_= (value:Int):Unit = _age = value override def toString: String = { return s"firstname: $firstName, lastname: $lastName, age: $age" } } Which we can use as follows: Wait a minute, aren’t we meant to be calling a method when we use the age setter? In Scala, parentheses are usually optional. The age setter line could just as easily been written as: Hide Copy Code
person1.age =(99) // OR person1.age_=(99)
Tooling Compatability Scala is a JVM language but is it's not Java, and as such sometimes you may need to do a bit more work if you want to interop with Java correctly. Bean properties may be one area where extra work is required. The reason for this is that in Java Beans, there is an expectation that there are methods call getXXX() and setXXX(). Mmm curious. Luckily in Scala, this is easy to fix, we just need to use a simple BeanProperty annotation. Hide Copy Code
//Primary constructor class Person(var firstName: String, var lastName: String) { @scala.beans.BeanProperty var age = 0 override def toString: String = { return s"firstname: $firstName, lastname: $lastName, age: $age" } } Which you may then use like this: Hide Copy Code
val person1 = new Person("sacha","barber") person1.age = 12 var theirAge = person1.getAge() Note you may also do this on the constructor which may help should you wish to expose constructor parameters as bean properties: Hide Copy Code
class Person( @scala.beans.BeanProperty var firstName: String, @scala.beans.BeanProperty var lastName: String) { }
Methods Methods in Scala are simply defined as follows: Hide Copy Code
def ReverseAString(inputString:String) : String = { return inputString.reverse } Where we specify that it is a method using the def keyword, and then a name for the method, and then any parameters followed by a colon and then a return type, then we supply the method body. We then can call this method like this (assumes we added this method to our Person class) Hide Copy Code
val person1 = new Person("sacha","barber") val reversed = person1.ReverseAString("The cat sat here")
Static Classes / Static Methods This is certainly one area where Scala and .NET differ. In Scala static methods, go into a companion object for the type. I actually think the Scala way makes a lot more sense, when you think about. The Person “OBJECT” has this method. Anyway, here is a small example: Hide Copy Code
//Companion object where Static things live object Person { def StaticDoubleIntMethodOnPersonType(input : Int) : Int = { return input * 2 } } //Primary constructor class Person(var firstName: String, var lastName: String) { override def toString: String = { return s"firstname: $firstName, lastname: $lastName" } } Which you could use like this: Hide Copy Code
val doubled = Person.StaticDoubleIntMethodOnPersonType(10)
License This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)
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About the Author Sacha Barber Software Developer (Senior) United Kingdom I currently hold the following qualifications (amongst others, I also studied Music Technology and Electronics, for my sins) - MSc (Passed with distinctions), in Information Technology for E-Commerce - BSc Hons (1st class) in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Both of these at Sussex University UK. Award(s) I am lucky enough to have won a few awards for Zany Crazy code articles over the years Microsoft C# MVP 2016 Codeproject MVP 2016 Microsoft C# MVP 2015 Codeproject MVP 2015 Microsoft C# MVP 2014 Codeproject MVP 2014 Microsoft C# MVP 2013 Codeproject MVP 2013 Microsoft C# MVP 2012 Codeproject MVP 2012 Microsoft C# MVP 2011 Codeproject MVP 2011 Microsoft C# MVP 2010 Codeproject MVP 2010 Microsoft C# MVP 2009 Codeproject MVP 2009 Microsoft C# MVP 2008 Codeproject MVP 2008 And numerous codeproject awards which you can see over at my blog
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My vote of 5 Re: My vote of 5
PVX007
23-Nov-15 15:40
Sacha Barber
23-Nov-15 20:10
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