Scala - how to print case classes like (pretty printed) tree

Question

I\'m making a parser with Scala Combinators. It is awesome. What I end up with is a long list of entagled case classes, like: ClassDecl(Complex,List(VarDecl(Real,float

Answer 1

Starting Scala 2.13, case classes (which are an implementation of Product) are now provided with a productElementNames method which returns an iterator over their field's names.

Combined with Product::productIterator which provides the values of a case class, we have a simple way to pretty print case classes without requiring reflection:

def pprint(obj: Any, depth: Int = 0, paramName: Option[String] = None): Unit = {

  val indent = "  " * depth
  val prettyName = paramName.fold("")(x => s"$x: ")
  val ptype = obj match { case _: Iterable[Any] => "" case obj: Product => obj.productPrefix case _ => obj.toString }

  println(s"$indent$prettyName$ptype")

  obj match {
    case seq: Iterable[Any] =>
      seq.foreach(pprint(_, depth + 1))
    case obj: Product =>
      (obj.productIterator zip obj.productElementNames)
        .foreach { case (subObj, paramName) => pprint(subObj, depth + 1, Some(paramName)) }
    case _ =>
  }
}

which for your specific scenario:

// sealed trait Kind
// case object Complex extends Kind
// case class VarDecl(a: Int, b: String)
// case class ClassDecl(kind: Kind, decls: List[VarDecl])

val data = ClassDecl(Complex, List(VarDecl(1, "abcd"), VarDecl(2, "efgh")))

pprint(data)

produces:

ClassDecl
  kind: Complex
  decls: 
    VarDecl
      a: 1
      b: abcd
    VarDecl
      a: 2
      b: efgh