Scala: Fill the gaps in a List with last non-empty value

Question

I have a list like:

val arr = Array(\"a\", \"\", \"\", \"b\", \"c\", \"\")

I am looking for a way to create:

Array(\"a\", \"a\"         


        

Answer 1

I think Mohitt's answer is a clear solution ... but Pablo Francisco Pérez Hidalgo is right that there are side effects

Maybe we could include the variable inside of a function to avoid changing the temp variable by some other developers

(x: Array[String]) => { var last = ""; x.map { v => if (v != "") last = v; last } }

to be used like this:

val fillEmpty = (x: Array[String]) => { var last = ""; x.map { v => if (v != "") last = v; last } }
fillEmpty(arr)