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What is the difference between a var and val definition in Scala and why does the language need both? Why would you choose a val over a var and vice versa?
As so many others have said, the object assigned to a val cannot be replaced, and the object assigned to a var can. However, said object can have its internal state modified. For example:
class A(n: Int) {
var value = n
}
class B(n: Int) {
val value = new A(n)
}
object Test {
def main(args: Array[String]) {
val x = new B(5)
x = new B(6) // Doesn't work, because I can't replace the object created on the line above with this new one.
x.value = new A(6) // Doesn't work, because I can't replace the object assigned to B.value for a new one.
x.value.value = 6 // Works, because A.value can receive a new object.
}
}
So, even though we can't change the object assigned to x, we could change the state of that object. At the root of it, however, there was a var.
Now, immutability is a good thing for many reasons. First, if an object doesn't change internal state, you don't have to worry if some other part of your code is changing it. For example:
x = new B(0)
f(x)
if (x.value.value == 0)
println("f didn't do anything to x")
else
println("f did something to x")
This becomes particularly important with multithreaded systems. In a multithreaded system, the following can happen:
x = new B(1)
f(x)
if (x.value.value == 1) {
print(x.value.value) // Can be different than 1!
}
If you use val exclusively, and only use immutable data structures (that is, avoid arrays, everything in scala.collection.mutable, etc.), you can rest assured this won't happen. That is, unless there's some code, perhaps even a framework, doing reflection tricks -- reflection can change "immutable" values, unfortunately.
That's one reason, but there is another reason for it. When you use var, you can be tempted into reusing the same var for multiple purposes. This has some problems:
It will be more difficult for people reading the code to know what is the value of a variable in a certain part of the code.
You may forget to re-initialize the variable in some code path, and end up passing wrong values downstream in the code.
Simply put, using val is safer and leads to more readable code.
We can, then, go the other direction. If val is that better, why have var at all? Well, some languages did take that route, but there are situations in which mutability improves performance, a lot.
For example, take an immutable Queue. When you either enqueue or dequeue things in it, you get a new Queue object. How then, would you go about processing all items in it?
I'll go through that with an example. Let's say you have a queue of digits, and you want to compose a number out of them. For example, if I have a queue with 2, 1, 3, in that order, I want to get back the number 213. Let's first solve it with a mutable.Queue:
def toNum(q: scala.collection.mutable.Queue[Int]) = {
var num = 0
while (!q.isEmpty) {
num *= 10
num += q.dequeue
}
num
}
This code is fast and easy to understand. Its main drawback is that the queue that is passed is modified by toNum, so you have to make a copy of it beforehand. That's the kind of object management that immutability makes you free from.
Now, let's covert it to an immutable.Queue:
def toNum(q: scala.collection.immutable.Queue[Int]) = {
def recurse(qr: scala.collection.immutable.Queue[Int], num: Int): Int = {
if (qr.isEmpty)
num
else {
val (digit, newQ) = qr.dequeue
recurse(newQ, num * 10 + digit)
}
}
recurse(q, 0)
}
Because I can't reuse some variable to keep track of my num, like in the previous example, I need to resort to recursion. In this case, it is a tail-recursion, which has pretty good performance. But that is not always the case: sometimes there is just no good (readable, simple) tail recursion solution.
Note, however, that I can rewrite that code to use an immutable.Queue and a var at the same time! For example:
def toNum(q: scala.collection.immutable.Queue[Int]) = {
var qr = q
var num = 0
while (!qr.isEmpty) {
val (digit, newQ) = qr.dequeue
num *= 10
num += digit
qr = newQ
}
num
}
This code is still efficient, does not require recursion, and you don't need to worry whether you have to make a copy of your queue or not before calling toNum. Naturally, I avoided reusing variables for other purposes, and no code outside this function sees them, so I don't need to worry about their values changing from one line to the next -- except when I explicitly do so.
Scala opted to let the programmer do that, if the programmer deemed it to be the best solution. Other languages have chosen to make such code difficult. The price Scala (and any language with widespread mutability) pays is that the compiler doesn't have as much leeway in optimizing the code as it could otherwise. Java's answer to that is optimizing the code based on the run-time profile. We could go on and on about pros and cons to each side.
Personally, I think Scala strikes the right balance, for now. It is not perfect, by far. I think both Clojure and Haskell have very interesting notions not adopted by Scala, but Scala has its own strengths as well. We'll see what comes up on the future.
val is final, that is, cannot be set. Think final in java.
In simple terms:
var = variable
val = variable + final
val means immutable and var means mutable.
Full discussion.
The difference is that a var can be re-assigned to whereas a val cannot. The mutability, or otherwise of whatever is actually assigned, is a side issue:
import collection.immutable
import collection.mutable
var m = immutable.Set("London", "Paris")
m = immutable.Set("New York") //Reassignment - I have change the "value" at m.
Whereas:
val n = immutable.Set("London", "Paris")
n = immutable.Set("New York") //Will not compile as n is a val.
And hence:
val n = mutable.Set("London", "Paris")
n = mutable.Set("New York") //Will not compile, even though the type of n is mutable.
If you are building a data structure and all of its fields are vals, then that data structure is therefore immutable, as its state cannot change.
Thinking in terms of C++,
val x: T
is analogous to constant pointer to non-constant data
T* const x;
while
var x: T
is analogous to non-constant pointer to non-constant data
T* x;
Favoring val over var increases immutability of the codebase which can facilitate its correctness, concurrency and understandability.
To understand the meaning of having a constant pointer to non-constant data consider the following Scala snippet:
val m = scala.collection.mutable.Map(1 -> "picard")
m // res0: scala.collection.mutable.Map[Int,String] = HashMap(1 -> picard)
Here the "pointer" val m is constant so we cannot re-assign it to point to something else like so
m = n // error: reassignment to val
however we can indeed change the non-constant data itself that m points to like so
m.put(2, "worf")
m // res1: scala.collection.mutable.Map[Int,String] = HashMap(1 -> picard, 2 -> worf)
"val means immutable and var means mutable."
To paraphrase, "val means value and var means variable".
A distinction that happens to be extremely important in computing (because those two concepts define the very essence of what programming is all about), and that OO has managed to blur almost completely, because in OO, the only axiom is that "everything is an object". And that as a consequence, lots of programmers these days tend not to understand/appreciate/recognize, because they have been brainwashed into "thinking the OO way" exclusively. Often leading to variable/mutable objects being used like everywhere, when value/immutable objects might/would often have been better.
val means immutable and var means mutable
you can think val as java programming language final key world or c++ language const key world。
Val means its final, cannot be reassigned
Whereas, Var can be reassigned later.
It's as simple as it name.
var means it can vary
val means invariable
Val - values are typed storage constants. Once created its value cant be re-assigned. a new value can be defined with keyword val.
eg. val x: Int = 5
Here type is optional as scala can infer it from the assigned value.
Var - variables are typed storage units which can be assigned values again as long as memory space is reserved.
eg. var x: Int = 5
Data stored in both the storage units are automatically de-allocated by JVM once these are no longer needed.
In scala values are preferred over variables due to stability these brings to the code particularly in concurrent and multithreaded code.
Though many have already answered the difference between Val and var.
But one point to notice is that val is not exactly like final keyword.
We can change the value of val using recursion but we can never change value of final. Final is more constant than Val.
def factorial(num: Int): Int = {
if(num == 0) 1
else factorial(num - 1) * num
}
Method parameters are by default val and at every call value is being changed.
In terms of javascript , it same as
val -> const
var -> var
I'm trying to pass a parameter by reference and update in a function.
object CallByName {
private def inc(x: => Int): Unit = {
x += 1
}
def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {
var x = 0
inc(x)
println(x)
}
}
But x+=1 is marked as an error:
Reassignment to val
I've come across this statement:
Mutating the input parameters is often seen as bad style and makes it
harder to reason about code.
Then how can I alternatively achieve what I want?
Mutating the input parameters is often seen as bad style and makes it harder to reason about code.
This is very true and, in my opinion, should be followed at all times.
pass a parameter by reference
x: => Int is not a parameter by reference, it is a by-name parameter.
Then how can I alternatively achieve what I want?
private def inc(x: Int): Int = {
x + 1
}
var x = 0
x = inc(x)
If you do insist on changing input parameter, you can use AtomicInteger for example and mutate it within your inc method.
I'm trying to pass a parameter by reference and update in a function.
Scala does not support pass-by-reference. The default is pass-by-value, and it is possible to explicitly define individual parameters as call-by-name, but those are the only two modes supported.
object CallByName {
private def inc(x: => Int): Unit = {
x += 1
}
}
That's not pass-by-reference, that is call-by-name. Check out the name of the object, it says so right there: CallByName.
Then how can I alternatively achieve what I want?
Unfortunately, you don't say what you want to achieve, so it's impossible to say. The only thing you do say is that you want pass-by-reference, and for that, the answer is simple:
You can't. Scala does not support pass-by-reference, period.
I understand that Scala embraces immutability fully.
Now I am thinking a scenario that I have to hold some state (via variables) in a class or such. I will need to update these variables later; then I can revisit the class later to access the updated variables.
I will try to make it simple with one very straightforward example:
class A {
var x: Int
def compute: Int = {calling some other processes or such using x as input}
}
......
def invoker() {
val a: A = new A
a.x = 1
......
val res1 = a.compute
a.x = 5
......
val res2 = a.compute
......
}
So you see, I need to keep changing x and get the results. If you argue that I can simply keep x as an argument for compute such as
def compute(x: Int)
......
That's a good idea but I cannot do it in my case as I need to separate setting value for x and computing the result completely. In other words, setting x value should not trigger "computing" to occur, rather, I need to be able to set x value anytime in the program and be able to reuse the value for computation any other time in the program when I need it.
I am using a variable (var x: Int) in this case. Is this legitimate or there is still some immutable way to handle it?
Any time you store state you will need to use mutability.
In your case, you want to store x and compute separately. Inherently, this means state is required since the results of compute depends on the state of x
If you really want the class with compute to be immutable, then some other mutable class will need to contain x and it will need to be passed to the compute method.
rather, I need to be able to set x value anytime in the program and be able to reuse the value for computation any other time in the program when I need it.
Then, by definition you want your class to be stateful. You could restructure your problem so that particular class doesn't require state, but whether that's useful and/or worth the hassle is something you'll have to figure out.
Your pattern is used in a ListBuffer for example (with size as your compute function).
So yes, there might be cases where you can use this pattern for good reasons. Example:
val l = List(1, 2, 3)
val lb = new ListBuffer[Int]
l.foreach(n => lb += n * n)
val result = lb.toList
println(result)
On the other hand a buffer is normally only used to create an immutable instance as soon as possible. If you look at this code, there are two items which might indicate that it can be changed: The mutable buffer and foreach (because foreach is only called for its side-effects)
So another option is
val l = List(1, 2, 3)
val result = l.map(n => n * n)
println(result)
which does the same in fewer lines. I prefer this style, because your are just looking at immutable instances and "functional" functions.
In your abstract example, you could try to separate the mutable state and the function:
class X(var i: Int)
class A {
def compute(x: X): Int = { ... }
}
possibly even
class X(val i: Int)
This way compute becomes functional: It's return value only depends from the parameter.
My personal favorite regarding an "unexpected" immutable class is scala.collection.immutable.Queue. With an "imperative" background, you just not expect a queue to be immutable.
So if you look at your pattern, it's likely that you can change it to being immutable.
I would create an immutable A class (here its a case class) and let an object handle the mutability. For each state change we create a new A object and change the reference in the object. This is handle concurrency bit better if you set x from a different thread, you just have to make the variable a volatile or an AtomicReference.
object A {
private[this] var a = A(0)
def setX(x: Int) { if (x != a.x) a = new A(x) }
def getA: A = a
}
case class A(x: Int) {
def compute: Int = { /*do your stuff*/ }
}
After a few more months on functional programming, here is my rethinking.
Every time a variable is modified/changed/updated/mutated, the imperative way of handling this is to record such change right with that variable. The functional way of thinking is to make the activity (that cause the change) bring the new state to you. In other words, it's like cause effect stuff. Functional way thinking focuses on the transition activity between cause and effect.
Given all that, in any given point of time in the program execution, our achievement is the intermediate result. We need somewhere to hold the result no matter how we do it. Such intermediate result is the state and yes, we need some variable to hold it. That's what I want to share with just abstract thinking.
def m(x: Int): Any = { }
var set = new HashSet[Int => Any]
set += m
set += m
set.size is now 2, and set.contains(m) is false, because apparently m is partially applied two times and two function objects is created. If m is a function, it works as expected. I want to treat the functions as equals if they reference the same method. Can this be done? (without turning to maps with key return for removal, or passing around other intermediate variables)
Use val fun = m _ to transform the method into a function before adding it.
Doing set += m implicitly creates a new function which is not equal to the function created when doing set.contains(m), e.g. both uses of m in a function context create a completely new and thus different function object. (Sorry, I just saw, you’ve already said that.)
This is okay, if you just need the get the methods into the set somehow and then use the set for all referencing. So the following works as well:
def m(x: Int): Any = { }
var set = new HashSet[Int => Any]
set += m
val fun = set.head // should not use head in real code but an iterator
set.contains(fun)
Addition:
or passing around other intermediate variables
There is no such thing as a method object in Scala. So I don’t think it is possible to compare two methods unless you compare their name. (Might be possible using reflection, but I’m not sure about that and it would be pretty nasty to do as well – you wouldn’t have a set of functions then but of method references which you’d need to transform to proper methods and back again.)
You can wrap the method into a lambda with the same signature:
val m1 = (i:Int) => m(i)
set += m1
set += m1
println( set.size ) // Outputs "1"
println( set contains m1 ) //Outputs "true"
What is the difference between a var and val definition in Scala and why does the language need both? Why would you choose a val over a var and vice versa?
As so many others have said, the object assigned to a val cannot be replaced, and the object assigned to a var can. However, said object can have its internal state modified. For example:
class A(n: Int) {
var value = n
}
class B(n: Int) {
val value = new A(n)
}
object Test {
def main(args: Array[String]) {
val x = new B(5)
x = new B(6) // Doesn't work, because I can't replace the object created on the line above with this new one.
x.value = new A(6) // Doesn't work, because I can't replace the object assigned to B.value for a new one.
x.value.value = 6 // Works, because A.value can receive a new object.
}
}
So, even though we can't change the object assigned to x, we could change the state of that object. At the root of it, however, there was a var.
Now, immutability is a good thing for many reasons. First, if an object doesn't change internal state, you don't have to worry if some other part of your code is changing it. For example:
x = new B(0)
f(x)
if (x.value.value == 0)
println("f didn't do anything to x")
else
println("f did something to x")
This becomes particularly important with multithreaded systems. In a multithreaded system, the following can happen:
x = new B(1)
f(x)
if (x.value.value == 1) {
print(x.value.value) // Can be different than 1!
}
If you use val exclusively, and only use immutable data structures (that is, avoid arrays, everything in scala.collection.mutable, etc.), you can rest assured this won't happen. That is, unless there's some code, perhaps even a framework, doing reflection tricks -- reflection can change "immutable" values, unfortunately.
That's one reason, but there is another reason for it. When you use var, you can be tempted into reusing the same var for multiple purposes. This has some problems:
It will be more difficult for people reading the code to know what is the value of a variable in a certain part of the code.
You may forget to re-initialize the variable in some code path, and end up passing wrong values downstream in the code.
Simply put, using val is safer and leads to more readable code.
We can, then, go the other direction. If val is that better, why have var at all? Well, some languages did take that route, but there are situations in which mutability improves performance, a lot.
For example, take an immutable Queue. When you either enqueue or dequeue things in it, you get a new Queue object. How then, would you go about processing all items in it?
I'll go through that with an example. Let's say you have a queue of digits, and you want to compose a number out of them. For example, if I have a queue with 2, 1, 3, in that order, I want to get back the number 213. Let's first solve it with a mutable.Queue:
def toNum(q: scala.collection.mutable.Queue[Int]) = {
var num = 0
while (!q.isEmpty) {
num *= 10
num += q.dequeue
}
num
}
This code is fast and easy to understand. Its main drawback is that the queue that is passed is modified by toNum, so you have to make a copy of it beforehand. That's the kind of object management that immutability makes you free from.
Now, let's covert it to an immutable.Queue:
def toNum(q: scala.collection.immutable.Queue[Int]) = {
def recurse(qr: scala.collection.immutable.Queue[Int], num: Int): Int = {
if (qr.isEmpty)
num
else {
val (digit, newQ) = qr.dequeue
recurse(newQ, num * 10 + digit)
}
}
recurse(q, 0)
}
Because I can't reuse some variable to keep track of my num, like in the previous example, I need to resort to recursion. In this case, it is a tail-recursion, which has pretty good performance. But that is not always the case: sometimes there is just no good (readable, simple) tail recursion solution.
Note, however, that I can rewrite that code to use an immutable.Queue and a var at the same time! For example:
def toNum(q: scala.collection.immutable.Queue[Int]) = {
var qr = q
var num = 0
while (!qr.isEmpty) {
val (digit, newQ) = qr.dequeue
num *= 10
num += digit
qr = newQ
}
num
}
This code is still efficient, does not require recursion, and you don't need to worry whether you have to make a copy of your queue or not before calling toNum. Naturally, I avoided reusing variables for other purposes, and no code outside this function sees them, so I don't need to worry about their values changing from one line to the next -- except when I explicitly do so.
Scala opted to let the programmer do that, if the programmer deemed it to be the best solution. Other languages have chosen to make such code difficult. The price Scala (and any language with widespread mutability) pays is that the compiler doesn't have as much leeway in optimizing the code as it could otherwise. Java's answer to that is optimizing the code based on the run-time profile. We could go on and on about pros and cons to each side.
Personally, I think Scala strikes the right balance, for now. It is not perfect, by far. I think both Clojure and Haskell have very interesting notions not adopted by Scala, but Scala has its own strengths as well. We'll see what comes up on the future.
val is final, that is, cannot be set. Think final in java.
In simple terms:
var = variable
val = variable + final
val means immutable and var means mutable.
Full discussion.
The difference is that a var can be re-assigned to whereas a val cannot. The mutability, or otherwise of whatever is actually assigned, is a side issue:
import collection.immutable
import collection.mutable
var m = immutable.Set("London", "Paris")
m = immutable.Set("New York") //Reassignment - I have change the "value" at m.
Whereas:
val n = immutable.Set("London", "Paris")
n = immutable.Set("New York") //Will not compile as n is a val.
And hence:
val n = mutable.Set("London", "Paris")
n = mutable.Set("New York") //Will not compile, even though the type of n is mutable.
If you are building a data structure and all of its fields are vals, then that data structure is therefore immutable, as its state cannot change.
Thinking in terms of C++,
val x: T
is analogous to constant pointer to non-constant data
T* const x;
while
var x: T
is analogous to non-constant pointer to non-constant data
T* x;
Favoring val over var increases immutability of the codebase which can facilitate its correctness, concurrency and understandability.
To understand the meaning of having a constant pointer to non-constant data consider the following Scala snippet:
val m = scala.collection.mutable.Map(1 -> "picard")
m // res0: scala.collection.mutable.Map[Int,String] = HashMap(1 -> picard)
Here the "pointer" val m is constant so we cannot re-assign it to point to something else like so
m = n // error: reassignment to val
however we can indeed change the non-constant data itself that m points to like so
m.put(2, "worf")
m // res1: scala.collection.mutable.Map[Int,String] = HashMap(1 -> picard, 2 -> worf)
"val means immutable and var means mutable."
To paraphrase, "val means value and var means variable".
A distinction that happens to be extremely important in computing (because those two concepts define the very essence of what programming is all about), and that OO has managed to blur almost completely, because in OO, the only axiom is that "everything is an object". And that as a consequence, lots of programmers these days tend not to understand/appreciate/recognize, because they have been brainwashed into "thinking the OO way" exclusively. Often leading to variable/mutable objects being used like everywhere, when value/immutable objects might/would often have been better.
val means immutable and var means mutable
you can think val as java programming language final key world or c++ language const key world。
Val means its final, cannot be reassigned
Whereas, Var can be reassigned later.
It's as simple as it name.
var means it can vary
val means invariable
Val - values are typed storage constants. Once created its value cant be re-assigned. a new value can be defined with keyword val.
eg. val x: Int = 5
Here type is optional as scala can infer it from the assigned value.
Var - variables are typed storage units which can be assigned values again as long as memory space is reserved.
eg. var x: Int = 5
Data stored in both the storage units are automatically de-allocated by JVM once these are no longer needed.
In scala values are preferred over variables due to stability these brings to the code particularly in concurrent and multithreaded code.
Though many have already answered the difference between Val and var.
But one point to notice is that val is not exactly like final keyword.
We can change the value of val using recursion but we can never change value of final. Final is more constant than Val.
def factorial(num: Int): Int = {
if(num == 0) 1
else factorial(num - 1) * num
}
Method parameters are by default val and at every call value is being changed.
In terms of javascript , it same as
val -> const
var -> var