Scala Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3. Numbers and Dates

This chapter covers recipes for working with Scala’s numeric types, and it also includes recipes for working with the Date and Time API that was introduced with Java 8.

In Scala, the types Byte, Short, Int, Long, and Char are known as integral types because they are represented by integers, or whole numbers. The integral types along with Double and Float comprise Scala’s numeric types. These numeric types extend the AnyVal trait, as do the Boolean and Unit types. As discussed on the unified types Scala page, these nine types are called the predefined value types, and they are non-nullable.

The relationship of the predefined value types to AnyVal and Any (as well as Nothing) is shown in Figure 3-1. As shown in that image:

• All of the numeric types extend AnyVal.

• All other types in the Scala class hierarchy extend AnyRef.

Figure 3-1. All the predefined numeric types extend AnyVal

As shown in Table 3-1, the numeric types have the same data ranges as their Java primitive equivalents.

Table 3-1. The data ranges of Scala’s built-in numeric types

Data type	Description	Range
Char	16-bit unsigned Unicode character	0 to 65,535
Byte	8-bit signed value	–128 to 127
Short	16-bit signed value	–32,768 to 32,767
Int	32-bit signed value	–2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647
Long	64-bit signed value	–263 to 263–1, inclusive (see below)
Float	32-bit IEEE ...