Scala supports the notion of case classes. Case classes are regular classes which export their constructor parameters and which provide a recursive decomposition mechanism via pattern matching.
Here is an example for a class hierarchy which consists of an abstract superclass Term and three concrete case classes Var, Fun, and App:
abstract class Term
case class Var(name: String) extends Term
case class Fun(arg: String, body: Term) extends Term
case class App(f: Term, v: Term) extends Term
This class hierarchy can be used to represent terms of the untyped lambda calculus. To facilitate the construction of case class instances, Scala does not require that the new primitive is used. One can simply use the class name as a function.
Here is an example:
Fun("x", Fun("y", App(Var("x"), Var("y"))))
The constructor parameters of case classes are treated as public values and can be accessed directly.
val x = Var("x")
println(x.name)
For every case class the Scala compiler generates an equals method which implements structural equality and a toString method. For instance,
It only makes sense to define case classes if pattern matching is used to decompose data structures. The following object defines a pretty printer function for our lambda calculus representation:
object TermTest extends Application {
def printTerm(term: Term) = {
term match {
case Var(n) =>
print(n)
case Fun(x, b) =>
print("^" + x + ".")
printTerm(b)
case App(f, v) =>
print("(")
printTerm(f)
print(" ")
printTerm(v)
print(")")
}
}
def isIdentityFun(term: Term): Boolean = term match {
case Fun(x, Var(y)) if x == y => true
case _ => false
}
val id = Fun("x", Var("x"))
val t = Fun("x", Fun("y", App(Var("x"), Var("y"))))
printTerm(t)
println
println(isIdentityFun(id))
println(isIdentityFun(t))
}
In our example, the function printTerm is expressed as a pattern matching statement starting with the match keyword and consisting of sequences of case Pattern => Body clauses.
The program above also defines a function isIdentityFun which checks if a given term corresponds to a simple identity function. This example uses deep patterns and guards. After matching a pattern with a given value, the guard (defined after the keyword if) is evaluated. If it returns true, the match succeeds; otherwise, it fails and the next pattern will be tried.
Case classes have an automatic equals method that works:
case class Person(first: String, last: String)
val p1 = new Person("Fred", "Jones")
val p2 = new Person("Shaggy", "Rogers")
val p3 = new Person("Fred", "Jones")
(p1 == p2) should be(res0)
(p1 == p3) should be(res1)
(p1 eq p2) should be(res2)
(p1 eq p3) should be(res3)
Case classes have an automatic hashcode method that works:
case class Person(first: String, last: String)
val p1 = new Person("Fred", "Jones")
val p2 = new Person("Shaggy", "Rogers")
val p3 = new Person("Fred", "Jones")
(p1.hashCode == p2.hashCode) should be(res0)
(p1.hashCode == p3.hashCode) should be(res1)
Case classes can be created in a convenient way:
case class Dog(name: String, breed: String)
val d1 = Dog("Scooby", "Doberman")
val d2 = Dog("Rex", "Custom")
val d3 = new Dog("Scooby", "Doberman") // the old way of creating using new
(d1 == d3) should be(res0)
(d1 == d2) should be(res1)
(d2 == d3) should be(res2)
Case classes have a convenient toString method defined:
case class Dog(name: String, breed: String)
val d1 = Dog("Scooby", "Doberman")
d1.toString should be(res0)
Case classes have automatic properties:
case class Dog(name: String, breed: String)
val d1 = Dog("Scooby", "Doberman")
d1.name should be(res0)
d1.breed should be(res1)
Case classes can have mutable properties:
case class Dog(
var name: String,
breed: String) // you can rename a dog, but change its breed? nah!
val d1 = Dog("Scooby", "Doberman")
d1.name should be(res0)
d1.breed should be(res1)
d1.name = "Scooby Doo" // but is it a good idea?
d1.name should be(res2)
d1.breed should be(res3)
There are safer alternatives for altering case classes:
case class Dog(name: String, breed: String) // Doberman
val d1 = Dog("Scooby", "Doberman")
val d2 = d1.copy(name = "Scooby Doo") // copy the case class but change the name in the copy
d1.name should be(res0) // original left alone
d1.breed should be(res1)
d2.name should be(res2)
d2.breed should be(res3)
Case classes can have default and named parameters:
case class Person(first: String, last: String, age: Int = 0, ssn: String = "")
val p1 = Person("Fred", "Jones", 23, "111-22-3333")
val p2 = Person("Samantha", "Jones") // note missing age and ssn
val p3 =
Person(
last = "Jones",
first = "Fred",
ssn = "111-22-3333") // note the order can change, and missing age
val p4 = p3.copy(age = 23)
p1.first should be(res0)
p1.last should be(res1)
p1.age should be(res2)
p1.ssn should be(res3)
p2.first should be(res4)
p2.last should be(res5)
p2.age should be(res6)
p2.ssn should be(res7)
p3.first should be(res8)
p3.last should be(res9)
p3.age should be(res10)
p3.ssn should be(res11)
(p1 == p4) should be(res12)
Case classes can be disassembled to their constituent parts as a tuple:
case class Person(first: String, last: String, age: Int = 0, ssn: String = "")
val p1 = Person("Fred", "Jones", 23, "111-22-3333")
val parts =
Person.unapply(p1).get // this seems weird, but it's critical to other features of Scala
parts._1 should be(res0)
parts._2 should be(res1)
parts._3 should be(res2)
parts._4 should be(res3)
Case classes are Serializable:
case class PersonCC(firstName: String, lastName: String)
val indy = PersonCC("Indiana", "Jones")
indy.isInstanceOf[Serializable] should be(res0)
class Person(firstName: String, lastName: String)
val junior = new Person("Indiana", "Jones")
junior.isInstanceOf[Serializable] should be(res1)
Make the calls to print/println uniform
`print` is sometimes called, and sometimes it is `Console.print`. I removed `Console.` to make the calls all the same.
