Book Image

Learning Scala Programming

By : Vikash Sharma
Book Image

Learning Scala Programming

By: Vikash Sharma

Overview of this book

Scala is a general-purpose programming language that supports both functional and object-oriented programming paradigms. Due to its concise design and versatility, Scala's applications have been extended to a wide variety of fields such as data science and cluster computing. You will learn to write highly scalable, concurrent, and testable programs to meet everyday software requirements. We will begin by understanding the language basics, syntax, core data types, literals, variables, and more. From here you will be introduced to data structures with Scala and you will learn to work with higher-order functions. Scala's powerful collections framework will help you get the best out of immutable data structures and utilize them effectively. You will then be introduced to concepts such as pattern matching, case classes, and functional programming features. From here, you will learn to work with Scala's object-oriented features. Going forward, you will learn about asynchronous and reactive programming with Scala, where you will be introduced to the Akka framework. Finally, you will learn the interoperability of Scala and Java. After reading this book, you'll be well versed with this language and its features, and you will be able to write scalable, concurrent, and reactive programs in Scala.

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Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Title Page
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Contributors
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with Scala Programming
Getting Started with Scala Programming
Introduction to Scala
Scala advantages
Working with Scala
Running our first program
Summary
2
Building Blocks of Scala
Building Blocks of Scala
What is underneath a Scala program?
Vals and vars
Literals
Data types
Type inference
Operators in Scala
Wrapper classes
String Interpolators
Summary
3
Shaping our Scala Program
Shaping our Scala Program
Looping
The for expressions
Recursion
Conditional statements
Pattern matching
Summary
4
Giving Meaning to Programs with Functions
Giving Meaning to Programs with Functions
Function syntax
Calling a function
Function literals
Evaluation strategies
Partial functions
Summary
5
Getting Familiar with Scala Collections
Getting Familiar with Scala Collections
Motivation
Immutable and mutable collections
Hierarchy of collections in Scala
Commonly used collections in Scala
Rich operations performed on collections
Parallel collections in Scala
Converting a Java collection into a Scala collection
Choosing a collection
Collection performance
Summary
6
Object-Oriented Scala Basics
Object-Oriented Scala Basics
Classes
Abstract classes
Objects as singletons
Companion objects
Case classes
Summary
7
Next Steps in Object-Oriented Scala
Next Steps in Object-Oriented Scala
Composition and inheritance
Class inheritance
Default and parameterized constructors
Traits
Traits as mix-ins
Linearization
Packaging and importing
Visibility rules
Sealed traits
Summary
8
More on Functions
More on Functions
Function literals
Methods
Functions versus methods
What are closures?
Higher-order functions
Currying
Partially applied functions
Summary
9
Using Powerful Functional Constructs
Using Powerful Functional Constructs
For expressions
Pattern matching
Different ways we can pattern match
Option type
Lazy declaration
Tail call optimization
Combinators
Type parameterization
Summary
10
Advanced Functional Programming
Advanced Functional Programming
Why so serious about types?
Here comes type parameterization
Another way around - generic classes and traits
Type parameter names
Container types
Type erasure
Variance under inheritance
Abstract types
Type bounds
Abstract versus parameterized types
Type-classes
Summary
11
Working with Implicits and Exceptions
Working with Implicits and Exceptions
Exception handling – the old way
Using the Option way
Either left or right
Implicits - what and why
Implicit parameters
The implicitly method
Implicit conversions
Looking for implicits
Type-classes ahead!
Summary
12
Introduction to Akka
Introduction to Akka
Why do we care about Akka?
What's up with the Actor Model?
Understanding the Actor system
Props
Actor references and paths
Selecting existing actorRefs via actorSelection
How the Actor life cycle works
Hello world in Akka
Writing our first Actor
The tell versus ask versus forward method
Stopping Actors
The preStart and postStop hooks
Actor communication via messages and its semantics
Supervising fault in our actors
OneForOne versus AllForOne strategy
Default supervision strategy
Applying the supervision strategy
Testing actors
Summary
13
Concurrent Programming in Scala
Concurrent Programming in Scala
Concurrent programming
Building blocks of concurrency
Asynchronous programming
Parallel collections
Summary
14
Programming with Reactive Extensions
Programming with Reactive Extensions
Reactive programming
Reactive extensions
React to RxScala
Summary
15
Testing in Scala
Testing in Scala
The why and what of TDD
ScalaTest
ScalaMock – a native library to mock objects
Summary
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Index
Index

Working with Scala

In this book, we're using Scala version 2.12.2. Scala 2.12 requires your system to have Java version 8 installed. Older Scala versions support Java version 6 and above. Support for Java version 9 is still a topic of discussion for the Scala 2.13 roadmap.

Scala 2.12 was a step up from previous versions, mainly for support of Java and Scala lambda interoperability. Traits and functions are compiled directly to their Java 8 equivalents.

Java installation

Do the needful. If Java is not already installed on your machine, you may refer to Oracle's website at https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/install/install_overview.html for instructions on how to install Java for your operating system.

SBT installation

SBT, as the name suggests, is a Simple Build Tool. From managing all source files to their compiled target versions to downloading all dependencies, SBT helps you create a Scala application with ease. You can configure how your test cases run. SBT comes with various commands for such tasks.

To install SBT on your machine, perform the following:

  1. Go to http://www.scala-sbt.org/download.html.
  2. You may choose from the available options suitable for your operating system.

After installation, you may check the version, so open a command prompt/terminal and type this:

sbt sbt-version
[info] 0.13.11

You should get the corresponding version number.

Scala REPL

There is more than one way of interacting with Scala. One of them is using Scala Interpreter (REPL). To run Scala REPL using SBT, just give the following command in the command prompt/terminal:

sbt console

This command will run Scala REPL.

To run Scala REPL using Scala binary, perform the following:

  1. Go to https://www.scala-lang.org/download/.
  2. Download the latest Scala archive.
  3. Extract the archive to any directory.
  4. Set the directory path as environment variables as shown in https://www.scala-lang.org/download/install.html.
  5. Try running the scala command, it should look something like this:

If so, congrats. You've done it. Now it's asking you to type any expression. You may try typing any expression. Try anything, like 1 + 2 or 1 + "2". REPL is your playground to learn Scala.

Scala IDEs

After getting familiar with Scala REPL, now is the time to install IDE (Integrated Development Environment). There are options available to work with Scala in IDE. Choose what fits the best for you. Eclipse lovers can go for Scala IDE. To download:

  1. Go to http://scala-ide.org/download/sdk.html.
  2. You may choose from the available options suitable for your operating system.

If you're accustomed to IntelliJ IDE, you may go for the plugin download for SBT. This will enable you to create Scala applications. To get started with Scala development on IntelliJ IDE:

  1. Go to https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/.
  2. You may choose from the available options suitable for your operating system.
  3. After installation, go to File | IntelliJ IDEA | Preferences | Plugins and search for Scala.
  4. Click on Install | Apply.

With this, you're ready to work with Scala on IntelliJ IDE. If you're IDE neutral, you may choose whichever suits the best. We'll use IntelliJ IDE (Community Edition) version 2017.1 with SBT version 0.13.15 and Scala 2.12.2 version.

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