lazy function definitions in scala

Question

I\'ve been learning scala and I gotta say that it\'s a really cool language. I especially like its pattern matching capabilities and function literals but I come from a javascri

Answer 1

I known nothing about Ruby, but scala has singleton object pattern also:

Welcome to Scala version 2.8.0.r22634-b20100728020027 (Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM, Java 1.6.0_20).
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scala> object LazyInit {                                       
     |     val msec = { println("Hi,I'm here!");   System.currentTimeMillis }
     | }
defined module LazyInit

scala> System.currentTimeMillis                                              
res0: Long = 1282728315918

scala> println(System.currentTimeMillis +" : " + LazyInit.msec)              
Hi,I'm here!
1282728319929 : 1282728319930

scala> println(System.currentTimeMillis +" : " + LazyInit.msec)
1282728322936 : 1282728319930

scala> println(System.currentTimeMillis +" : " + LazyInit.msec)
1282728324490 : 1282728319930

scala> 

If you want to get function ,you can make it subtype of a function type:

scala> object LazyFun extends (() => Long) {            
     |     val msec = System.currentTimeMillis          
     |     def apply() = msec                           
     | }
defined module LazyFun

scala> System.currentTimeMillis                         
res2: Long = 1282729169918

scala> println(System.currentTimeMillis + " : " + LazyFun())
1282729190384 : 1282729190384

scala> println(System.currentTimeMillis + " : " + LazyFun())
1282729192972 : 1282729190384

scala> println(System.currentTimeMillis + " : " + LazyFun())
1282729195346 : 1282729190384