Packages

This is the documentation for the Scala standard library.

Package structure

The scala package contains core types like Int, Float, Array or Option which are accessible in all Scala compilation units without explicit qualification or imports.

Notable packages include:

scala.collection and its sub-packages contain Scala's collections framework
- scala.collection.immutable - Immutable, sequential data-structures such as Vector, List, Range, HashMap or HashSet
- scala.collection.mutable - Mutable, sequential data-structures such as ArrayBuffer, StringBuilder, HashMap or HashSet
- scala.collection.concurrent - Mutable, concurrent data-structures such as TrieMap
scala.concurrent - Primitives for concurrent programming such as Futures and Promises
scala.io - Input and output operations
scala.math - Basic math functions and additional numeric types like BigInt and BigDecimal
scala.sys - Interaction with other processes and the operating system
scala.util.matching - Regular expressions

Other packages exist. See the complete list on the right.

Additional parts of the standard library are shipped as separate libraries. These include:

scala.reflect - Scala's reflection API (scala-reflect.jar)
scala.xml - XML parsing, manipulation, and serialization (scala-xml.jar)
scala.collection.parallel - Parallel collections (scala-parallel-collections.jar)
scala.util.parsing - Parser combinators (scala-parser-combinators.jar)
scala.swing - A convenient wrapper around Java's GUI framework called Swing (scala-swing.jar)

Automatic imports

Identifiers in the scala package and the scala.Predef object are always in scope by default.

Some of these identifiers are type aliases provided as shortcuts to commonly used classes. For example, List is an alias for scala.collection.immutable.List.

Other aliases refer to classes provided by the underlying platform. For example, on the JVM, String is an alias for java.lang.String.

Definition Classes: root

package scala

Core Scala types.

Core Scala types. They are always available without an explicit import.

Definition Classes: root

package annotation

Definition Classes: scala

package beans

Definition Classes: scala

package collection

Definition Classes: scala

package compat

Definition Classes: scala

package concurrent

This package object contains primitives for concurrent and parallel programming.

Guide

A more detailed guide to Futures and Promises, including discussion and examples can be found at http://docs.scala-lang.org/overviews/core/futures.html.

Common Imports

When working with Futures, you will often find that importing the whole concurrent package is convenient:

import scala.concurrent._

When using things like Futures, it is often required to have an implicit ExecutionContext in scope. The general advice for these implicits are as follows.

If the code in question is a class or method definition, and no ExecutionContext is available, request one from the caller by adding an implicit parameter list:

def myMethod(myParam: MyType)(implicit ec: ExecutionContext) = …
//Or
class MyClass(myParam: MyType)(implicit ec: ExecutionContext) { … }

This allows the caller of the method, or creator of the instance of the class, to decide which ExecutionContext should be used.

For typical REPL usage and experimentation, importing the global ExecutionContext is often desired.

import scala.concurrent.ExcutionContext.Implicits.global

Specifying Durations

Operations often require a duration to be specified. A duration DSL is available to make defining these easier:

import scala.concurrent.duration._
val d: Duration = 10.seconds

Using Futures For Non-blocking Computation

Basic use of futures is easy with the factory method on Future, which executes a provided function asynchronously, handing you back a future result of that function without blocking the current thread. In order to create the Future you will need either an implicit or explicit ExecutionContext to be provided:

import scala.concurrent._
import ExecutionContext.Implicits.global  // implicit execution context

val firstZebra: Future[Int] = Future {
  val source = scala.io.Source.fromFile("/etc/dictionaries-common/words")
  source.toSeq.indexOfSlice("zebra")
}

Avoid Blocking

Although blocking is possible in order to await results (with a mandatory timeout duration):

import scala.concurrent.duration._
Await.result(firstZebra, 10.seconds)

and although this is sometimes necessary to do, in particular for testing purposes, blocking in general is discouraged when working with Futures and concurrency in order to avoid potential deadlocks and improve performance. Instead, use callbacks or combinators to remain in the future domain:

val animalRange: Future[Int] = for {
  aardvark <- firstAardvark
  zebra <- firstZebra
} yield zebra - aardvark

animalRange.onSuccess {
  case x if x > 500000 => println("It's a long way from Aardvark to Zebra")
}

Definition Classes: scala

package io

Definition Classes: scala

package math

The package object scala.math contains methods for performing basic numeric operations such as elementary exponential, logarithmic, root and trigonometric functions.

All methods forward to java.lang.Math unless otherwise noted.

Definition Classes: scala
See also: java.lang.Math

package ref

Definition Classes: scala

package reflect

Definition Classes: scala

package runtime

Definition Classes: scala

package sys

The package object scala.sys contains methods for reading and altering core aspects of the virtual machine as well as the world outside of it.

Definition Classes: scala
Since: 2.9

package process

This package handles the execution of external processes.

This package handles the execution of external processes. The contents of this package can be divided in three groups, according to their responsibilities:

Indicating what to run and how to run it.
Handling a process input and output.
Running the process.

For simple uses, the only group that matters is the first one. Running an external command can be as simple as "ls".!, or as complex as building a pipeline of commands such as this:

import scala.sys.process._
"ls" #| "grep .scala" #&& Seq("sh", "-c", "scalac *.scala") #|| "echo nothing found" lazyLines

We describe below the general concepts and architecture of the package, and then take a closer look at each of the categories mentioned above.

Concepts and Architecture

The underlying basis for the whole package is Java's Process and ProcessBuilder classes. While there's no need to use these Java classes, they impose boundaries on what is possible. One cannot, for instance, retrieve a process id for whatever is executing.

When executing an external process, one can provide a command's name, arguments to it, the directory in which it will be executed and what environment variables will be set. For each executing process, one can feed its standard input through a java.io.OutputStream, and read from its standard output and standard error through a pair of java.io.InputStream. One can wait until a process finishes execution and then retrieve its return value, or one can kill an executing process. Everything else must be built on those features.

This package provides a DSL for running and chaining such processes, mimicking Unix shells ability to pipe output from one process to the input of another, or control the execution of further processes based on the return status of the previous one.

In addition to this DSL, this package also provides a few ways of controlling input and output of these processes, going from simple and easy to use to complex and flexible.

When processes are composed, a new ProcessBuilder is created which, when run, will execute the ProcessBuilder instances it is composed of according to the manner of the composition. If piping one process to another, they'll be executed simultaneously, and each will be passed a ProcessIO that will copy the output of one to the input of the other.

What to Run and How

The central component of the process execution DSL is the scala.sys.process.ProcessBuilder trait. It is ProcessBuilder that implements the process execution DSL, that creates the scala.sys.process.Process that will handle the execution, and return the results of such execution to the caller. We can see that DSL in the introductory example: #|, #&& and #!! are methods on ProcessBuilder used to create a new ProcessBuilder through composition.

One creates a ProcessBuilder either through factories on the scala.sys.process.Process's companion object, or through implicit conversions available in this package object itself. Implicitly, each process is created either out of a String, with arguments separated by spaces -- no escaping of spaces is possible -- or out of a scala.collection.Seq, where the first element represents the command name, and the remaining elements are arguments to it. In this latter case, arguments may contain spaces.

To further control what how the process will be run, such as specifying the directory in which it will be run, see the factories on scala.sys.process.Process's companion object.

Once the desired ProcessBuilder is available, it can be executed in different ways, depending on how one desires to control its I/O, and what kind of result one wishes for:

Return status of the process (! methods)
Output of the process as a String (!! methods)
Continuous output of the process as a LazyList[String] (lazyLines methods)
The Process representing it (run methods)

Some simple examples of these methods:

import scala.sys.process._

// This uses ! to get the exit code
def fileExists(name: String) = Seq("test", "-f", name).! == 0

// This uses !! to get the whole result as a string
val dirContents = "ls".!!

// This "fire-and-forgets" the method, which can be lazily read through
// a LazyList[String]
def sourceFilesAt(baseDir: String): LazyList[String] = {
  val cmd = Seq("find", baseDir, "-name", "*.scala", "-type", "f")
  cmd.lazyLines
}

We'll see more details about controlling I/O of the process in the next section.

Handling Input and Output

In the underlying Java model, once a Process has been started, one can get java.io.InputStream and java.io.OutputStream representing its output and input respectively. That is, what one writes to an OutputStream is turned into input to the process, and the output of a process can be read from an InputStream -- of which there are two, one representing normal output, and the other representing error output.

This model creates a difficulty, which is that the code responsible for actually running the external processes is the one that has to take decisions about how to handle its I/O.

This package presents an alternative model: the I/O of a running process is controlled by a scala.sys.process.ProcessIO object, which can be passed _to_ the code that runs the external process. A ProcessIO will have direct access to the java streams associated with the process I/O. It must, however, close these streams afterwards.

Simpler abstractions are available, however. The components of this package that handle I/O are:

scala.sys.process.ProcessIO: provides the low level abstraction.
scala.sys.process.ProcessLogger: provides a higher level abstraction for output, and can be created through its companion object.
scala.sys.process.BasicIO: a library of helper methods for the creation of ProcessIO.
This package object itself, with a few implicit conversions.

Some examples of I/O handling:

import scala.sys.process._

// An overly complex way of computing size of a compressed file
def gzFileSize(name: String) = {
  val cat = Seq("zcat", name)
  var count = 0
  def byteCounter(input: java.io.InputStream) = {
    while(input.read() != -1) count += 1
    input.close()
  }
  val p = cat run new ProcessIO(_.close(), byteCounter, _.close())
  p.exitValue()
  count
}

// This "fire-and-forgets" the method, which can be lazily read through
// a LazyList[String], and accumulates all errors on a StringBuffer
def sourceFilesAt(baseDir: String): (LazyList[String], StringBuffer) = {
  val buffer = new StringBuffer()
  val cmd = Seq("find", baseDir, "-name", "*.scala", "-type", "f")
  val lazyLines = cmd lazyLines_! ProcessLogger(buffer append _)
  (lazyLines, buffer)
}

Instances of the java classes java.io.File and java.net.URL can both be used directly as input to other processes, and java.io.File can be used as output as well. One can even pipe one to the other directly without any intervening process, though that's not a design goal or recommended usage. For example, the following code will copy a web page to a file:

import java.io.File
import java.net.URL
import scala.sys.process._
new URL("http://www.scala-lang.org/") #> new File("scala-lang.html") !

More information about the other ways of controlling I/O can be found in the Scaladoc for the associated objects, traits and classes.

Running the Process

Paradoxically, this is the simplest component of all, and the one least likely to be interacted with. It consists solely of scala.sys.process.Process, and it provides only two methods:

exitValue(): blocks until the process exit, and then returns the exit value. This is what happens when one uses the ! method of ProcessBuilder.
destroy(): this will kill the external process and close the streams associated with it.

package util

Definition Classes: scala

scala

sys

package sys

The package object scala.sys contains methods for reading and altering core aspects of the virtual machine as well as the world outside of it.

Source: package.scala
Since: 2.9

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package process
This package handles the execution of external processes.
This package handles the execution of external processes. The contents of this package can be divided in three groups, according to their responsibilities:
- Indicating what to run and how to run it.
- Handling a process input and output.
- Running the process.
For simple uses, the only group that matters is the first one. Running an external command can be as simple as "ls".!, or as complex as building a pipeline of commands such as this:
```
import scala.sys.process._
"ls" #| "grep .scala" #&& Seq("sh", "-c", "scalac *.scala") #|| "echo nothing found" lazyLines
```
We describe below the general concepts and architecture of the package, and then take a closer look at each of the categories mentioned above.
Concepts and Architecture
The underlying basis for the whole package is Java's Process and ProcessBuilder classes. While there's no need to use these Java classes, they impose boundaries on what is possible. One cannot, for instance, retrieve a process id for whatever is executing.
When executing an external process, one can provide a command's name, arguments to it, the directory in which it will be executed and what environment variables will be set. For each executing process, one can feed its standard input through a java.io.OutputStream, and read from its standard output and standard error through a pair of java.io.InputStream. One can wait until a process finishes execution and then retrieve its return value, or one can kill an executing process. Everything else must be built on those features.
This package provides a DSL for running and chaining such processes, mimicking Unix shells ability to pipe output from one process to the input of another, or control the execution of further processes based on the return status of the previous one.
In addition to this DSL, this package also provides a few ways of controlling input and output of these processes, going from simple and easy to use to complex and flexible.
When processes are composed, a new ProcessBuilder is created which, when run, will execute the ProcessBuilder instances it is composed of according to the manner of the composition. If piping one process to another, they'll be executed simultaneously, and each will be passed a ProcessIO that will copy the output of one to the input of the other.
What to Run and How
The central component of the process execution DSL is the scala.sys.process.ProcessBuilder trait. It is ProcessBuilder that implements the process execution DSL, that creates the scala.sys.process.Process that will handle the execution, and return the results of such execution to the caller. We can see that DSL in the introductory example: #|, #&& and #!! are methods on ProcessBuilder used to create a new ProcessBuilder through composition.
One creates a ProcessBuilder either through factories on the scala.sys.process.Process's companion object, or through implicit conversions available in this package object itself. Implicitly, each process is created either out of a String, with arguments separated by spaces -- no escaping of spaces is possible -- or out of a scala.collection.Seq, where the first element represents the command name, and the remaining elements are arguments to it. In this latter case, arguments may contain spaces.
To further control what how the process will be run, such as specifying the directory in which it will be run, see the factories on scala.sys.process.Process's companion object.
Once the desired ProcessBuilder is available, it can be executed in different ways, depending on how one desires to control its I/O, and what kind of result one wishes for:
- Return status of the process (! methods)
- Output of the process as a String (!! methods)
- Continuous output of the process as a LazyList[String] (lazyLines methods)
- The Process representing it (run methods)
Some simple examples of these methods:
```
import scala.sys.process._

// This uses ! to get the exit code
def fileExists(name: String) = Seq("test", "-f", name).! == 0

// This uses !! to get the whole result as a string
val dirContents = "ls".!!

// This "fire-and-forgets" the method, which can be lazily read through
// a LazyList[String]
def sourceFilesAt(baseDir: String): LazyList[String] = {
  val cmd = Seq("find", baseDir, "-name", "*.scala", "-type", "f")
  cmd.lazyLines
}
```
We'll see more details about controlling I/O of the process in the next section.
Handling Input and Output
In the underlying Java model, once a Process has been started, one can get java.io.InputStream and java.io.OutputStream representing its output and input respectively. That is, what one writes to an OutputStream is turned into input to the process, and the output of a process can be read from an InputStream -- of which there are two, one representing normal output, and the other representing error output.
This model creates a difficulty, which is that the code responsible for actually running the external processes is the one that has to take decisions about how to handle its I/O.
This package presents an alternative model: the I/O of a running process is controlled by a scala.sys.process.ProcessIO object, which can be passed _to_ the code that runs the external process. A ProcessIO will have direct access to the java streams associated with the process I/O. It must, however, close these streams afterwards.
Simpler abstractions are available, however. The components of this package that handle I/O are:
- scala.sys.process.ProcessIO: provides the low level abstraction.
- scala.sys.process.ProcessLogger: provides a higher level abstraction for output, and can be created through its companion object.
- scala.sys.process.BasicIO: a library of helper methods for the creation of ProcessIO.
- This package object itself, with a few implicit conversions.
Some examples of I/O handling:
```
import scala.sys.process._

// An overly complex way of computing size of a compressed file
def gzFileSize(name: String) = {
  val cat = Seq("zcat", name)
  var count = 0
  def byteCounter(input: java.io.InputStream) = {
    while(input.read() != -1) count += 1
    input.close()
  }
  val p = cat run new ProcessIO(_.close(), byteCounter, _.close())
  p.exitValue()
  count
}

// This "fire-and-forgets" the method, which can be lazily read through
// a LazyList[String], and accumulates all errors on a StringBuffer
def sourceFilesAt(baseDir: String): (LazyList[String], StringBuffer) = {
  val buffer = new StringBuffer()
  val cmd = Seq("find", baseDir, "-name", "*.scala", "-type", "f")
  val lazyLines = cmd lazyLines_! ProcessLogger(buffer append _)
  (lazyLines, buffer)
}
```
Instances of the java classes java.io.File and java.net.URL can both be used directly as input to other processes, and java.io.File can be used as output as well. One can even pipe one to the other directly without any intervening process, though that's not a design goal or recommended usage. For example, the following code will copy a web page to a file:
```
import java.io.File
import java.net.URL
import scala.sys.process._
new URL("http://www.scala-lang.org/") #> new File("scala-lang.html") !
```
More information about the other ways of controlling I/O can be found in the Scaladoc for the associated objects, traits and classes.
Running the Process
Paradoxically, this is the simplest component of all, and the one least likely to be interacted with. It consists solely of scala.sys.process.Process, and it provides only two methods:
- exitValue(): blocks until the process exit, and then returns the exit value. This is what happens when one uses the ! method of ProcessBuilder.
- destroy(): this will kill the external process and close the streams associated with it.

Type Members

trait BooleanProp extends Prop[Boolean]
A few additional conveniences for Boolean properties.
trait Prop[+T] extends AnyRef
A lightweight interface wrapping a property contained in some unspecified map.
A lightweight interface wrapping a property contained in some unspecified map. Generally it'll be the system properties but this is not a requirement.
See scala.sys.SystemProperties for an example usage.
Since
2.9
class ShutdownHookThread extends Thread
A minimal Thread wrapper to enhance shutdown hooks.
A minimal Thread wrapper to enhance shutdown hooks. It knows how to unregister itself.
Since
2.9
class SystemProperties extends AbstractMap[String, String]
A bidirectional map wrapping the java System properties.
A bidirectional map wrapping the java System properties. Changes to System properties will be immediately visible in the map, and modifications made to the map will be immediately applied to the System properties. If a security manager is in place which prevents the properties from being read or written, the AccessControlException will be caught and discarded.

Value Members

def addShutdownHook(body: ⇒ Unit): ShutdownHookThread
Register a shutdown hook to be run when the VM exits.
Register a shutdown hook to be run when the VM exits. The hook is automatically registered: the returned value can be ignored, but is available in case the Thread requires further modification. It can also be unregistered by calling ShutdownHookThread#remove().
Note that shutdown hooks are NOT guaranteed to be run.
body
the body of code to run at shutdown
returns
the Thread which will run the shutdown hook.
See also
scala.sys.ShutdownHookThread
def allThreads(): IndexedSeq[Thread]
Returns all active thread in the current thread's thread group and subgroups.
Returns all active thread in the current thread's thread group and subgroups.
returns
an IndexedSeq containing the threads.
def env: Map[String, String]
An immutable Map representing the current system environment.
An immutable Map representing the current system environment.
returns
a Map containing the system environment variables.
def error(message: String): Nothing
Throw a new RuntimeException with the supplied message.
Throw a new RuntimeException with the supplied message.
returns
Nothing.
def exit(status: Int): Nothing
Exit the JVM with the given status code.
Exit the JVM with the given status code.
returns
Nothing.
def exit(): Nothing
Exit the JVM with the default status code.
Exit the JVM with the default status code.
returns
Nothing.
def props: SystemProperties
A bidirectional, mutable Map representing the current system Properties.
A bidirectional, mutable Map representing the current system Properties.
returns
a SystemProperties.
See also
scala.sys.SystemProperties
def runtime: Runtime
A convenience method to get the current Runtime instance.
A convenience method to get the current Runtime instance.
returns
the result of java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime()
object BooleanProp
object Prop
object ShutdownHookThread
object SystemProperties extends java.io.Serializable
The values in SystemProperties can be used to access and manipulate designated system properties.
The values in SystemProperties can be used to access and manipulate designated system properties. See scala.sys.Prop for particulars.
Example:
1. if (!headless.isSet) headless.enable()

Packages

Package structure

Automatic imports

Guide

Common Imports

Specifying Durations

Using Futures For Non-blocking Computation

Avoid Blocking

Concepts and Architecture

What to Run and How

Handling Input and Output

Running the Process

sys

package sys

Package Members

Concepts and Architecture

What to Run and How

Handling Input and Output

Running the Process

Type Members

Value Members

Inherited from AnyRef

Inherited from Any

Ungrouped

Packages

Package structure

Automatic imports

Guide

Common Imports

Specifying Durations

Using Futures For Non-blocking Computation

Avoid Blocking

Concepts and Architecture

What to Run and How

Handling Input and Output

Running the Process

sys

package sys

Package Members

Concepts and Architecture

What to Run and How

Handling Input and Output

Running the Process

Type Members

Value Members

Inherited from AnyRef

Inherited from Any

Ungrouped

sys