What is the formal difference in Scala between braces and parentheses, and when should they be used?

Question

What is the formal difference between passing arguments to functions in parentheses () and in braces {}?

The feeling I got from the Pro

Answer 1

I don't think there is anything particular or complex about curly braces in Scala. To master the seeming-complex usage of them in Scala, just keep a couple of simple things in mind:

1. curly braces form a block of code, which evaluates to the last line of code (almost all languages do this)
2. a function if desired can be generated with the block of code (follows rule 1)
3. curly braces can be omitted for one-line code except for a case clause (Scala choice)
4. parentheses can be omitted in function call with code block as a parameter (Scala choice)

Let's explain a couple of examples per the above three rules:

val tupleList = List[(String, String)]()
// doesn't compile, violates case clause requirement
val filtered = tupleList.takeWhile( case (s1, s2) => s1 == s2 ) 
// block of code as a partial function and parentheses omission,
// i.e. tupleList.takeWhile({ case (s1, s2) => s1 == s2 })
val filtered = tupleList.takeWhile{ case (s1, s2) => s1 == s2 }

// curly braces omission, i.e. List(1, 2, 3).reduceLeft({_+_})
List(1, 2, 3).reduceLeft(_+_)
// parentheses omission, i.e. List(1, 2, 3).reduceLeft({_+_})
List(1, 2, 3).reduceLeft{_+_}
// not both though it compiles, because meaning totally changes due to precedence
List(1, 2, 3).reduceLeft _+_ // res1: String => String = 

// curly braces omission, i.e. List(1, 2, 3).foldLeft(0)({_ + _})
List(1, 2, 3).foldLeft(0)(_ + _)
// parentheses omission, i.e. List(1, 2, 3).foldLeft(0)({_ + _})
List(1, 2, 3).foldLeft(0){_ + _}
// block of code and parentheses omission
List(1, 2, 3).foldLeft {0} {_ + _}
// not both though it compiles, because meaning totally changes due to precedence
List(1, 2, 3).foldLeft(0) _ + _
// error: ';' expected but integer literal found.
List(1, 2, 3).foldLeft 0 (_ + _)

def foo(f: Int => Unit) = { println("Entering foo"); f(4) }
// block of code that just evaluates to a value of a function, and parentheses omission
// i.e. foo({ println("Hey"); x => println(x) })
foo { println("Hey"); x => println(x) }

// parentheses omission, i.e. f({x})
def f(x: Int): Int = f {x}
// error: missing arguments for method f
def f(x: Int): Int = f x