Organizing Classes and Scala Class Hierarchy

Organizing Classes

Packages

Like Java, classes are organized using Packages. To place a class or object inside a package, the package clause is placed at the top the source file. Eg. To place an object called Hello in the package progfun.examples

package progfun.examples

object Hello { 
    ... 
}

A class or an object can be referred by its fully qualified name i.e. packagename.classname Eg. In the above case, progfun.examples.Hello. So to run the program, we can use:

> scala progfun.examples.Hello

Imports

As mentioned above, a class can be used using its fully qualified name:

val num1 = new progfun.examples.Rational(1,2)

Alternatively, you can use an import, and just use the class name or object name:

import week3.Rational
val foo = new Rational(1, 2)

imports can be used in various ways:

// Named imports
import week3.Rational          // imports just Rational
import week3.{Rational, Hello} // imports both Rational and Hello
// Wildcard imports
import week3._                 // imports everything in package week3

Automatic Imports

Some entities are automatically imported by Scala.

• All members of package scala
• All members of package java.lang
• All members of the singleton object scala.Predef.

This allows us to the following directly:

Int      scala.Int
Boolean  scala.Boolean
Object   java.lang.Object
require  scala.Predef.require
assert   scala.Predef.assert

Traits

Traits are similar to abstract classes where they contain unimplemented and implemented methods (concrete method definitons).

trait Planar {
    def height: Int
    def width: Int
    def surface = height * width
}

Traits vs Abstract Classes:

• Classes, objects and traits can inherit from at most one class or abstract class but many traits. Eg

class Square extends Shape with Planar with Movable ...

• Abstract classes can have constructor value parameters as well as type parameters (i.e. generic type parameters). Traits can have only type parameters.
• Abstract classes are fully interoperable with Java. You can call them from Java code without any wrappers. Traits are fully interoperable only if they do not contain any implementation code

Scala Class Hierarchy

Any

scala.Any is the top superclass in the scala higherarchy. This is the class that defines:

• ==
• !=
• toString()
• hashCode() It has 2 subclasses: scala.AnyVal,scala.AnyRef.

scala.AnyVal is the superclass of all the primitive/value types i.e. Int, Boolean, etc.

scala.AnyRef is the superclass of all the other classes. If Scala is used in the context of a Java runtime environment, then scala.AnyRef corresponds to java.lang.Object.

Nothing and Exception

Nothing type is at the bottom of Scala’s type hierarchy. It is a subtype of every other type. There is no value of type Nothing. Why is that useful?

• To signal abnormal termination (eg. return Nothing.)
• As an element type of empty collections.

Exception type: Scala exception handling is similar to Java. The expression:

throw Exc

aborts evaluation by throwing Exception Exc. The type of throw Exc is Nothing.

Null

Every reference class type also has null as a value. The type of null is Null.

Null is a subtype of every class that inherits from Object; it is incompatible with subtypes of AnyVal.

val x = null         // x: Null
val y: String = null // y: String
val z: Int = null    // error: type mismatch

Question

What is the type of:

if (true) 1 else false

// options
- Int
- Boolean
- AnyVal
- Object
- Any

Both 1 and false have AnyVal as the first common baseclass. Hence AnyVal.