Scala Apply Method

The apply methods in scala has a nice syntactic sugar. It allows us to define semantics like java array access for an arbitrary class.

For example, we create a class of RiceCooker and its method cook to cook rice. Whenever we need to cook rice, we could call this method.

class RiceCooker {
  def cook(cup_of_rice: Rice) = {
    cup_of_rice.isDone = true
    cup_of_rice
  }
}
val my_rice_cooker: RiceCooker = new RiceCooker()
my_rice_cooker.cook(new Rice())

Since the main function of RiceCooker is to cook rice, we can always put this cook function in an apply method as follows. As result, we can cook immediately after we put rice in the rice cooker without explicit invoking any methods.

class RiceCooker {
  def apply(cup_of_rice: Rice) = {
    cup_of_rice.isDone = true
    cup_of_rice
  }
}
val my_rice_cooker: RiceCooker = new RiceCooker()
my_rice_cooker(new Rice())

In addition, we can also move the apply method to the companion object. As result, the apply method becomes STATIC. Then, we can invoke it without creating a new RiceCooker object as below example.

object RiceCooker {
  def apply(cup_of_rice: Rice) = {
    cup_of_rice.isDone = true
    cup_of_rice
  }
}
RiceCooker(new Rice())

The best practice of using apply method in scala is to implement factory pattern. For example, the standard library of List in scala initializes objects using apply method in its companion object instead of using regular new keyword.

val a = List(1,2,3,4,5)

At the end, I give a comprehensive example of using the apply method in both way as follows.

class Test(n :Int) {
val a = Array[Int](n)
def apply(n :Int) = a(n)

/*
 * Scala simply makes a.update(x,y) to a(x)=y with syntactic sugar
 */
def update(n:Int, v:Int) = a(n) = v 
}

object Test {
def apply(n :Int) = new Test(n)
} 

/*
 * Call static apply method in companion object to create an object
 */
val tester = Test(10) 

tester(0) = 1 //This is equal to tester.update(0,1)
/*
 * Call a regular apply method defined in the class
 * println(tester(0)) is equal to println(tester.apply(0))
 */
println(tester(0))