Scala Cookbook

6.8. Creating Object Instances Without Using the new Keyword

Problem

You’ve seen that Scala code looks cleaner when you don’t always have to use the new keyword to create a new instance of a class, like this:

val a = Array(Person("John"), Person("Paul"))

So you want to know how to write your code to make your classes work like this.

Solution

There are two ways to do this:

• Create a companion object for your class, and define an apply method in the companion object with the desired constructor signature.

• Define your class as a case class.

You’ll look at both approaches next.

Creating a companion object with an apply method

To demonstrate the first approach, define a Person class and Person object in the same file. Define an apply method in the object that takes the desired parameters. This method is essentially the constructor of your class:

class Person {
  var name: String = _
}

object Person {
  def apply(name: String): Person = {
    var p = new Person
    p.name = name
    p
  }
}

Given this definition, you can create new Person instances without using the new keyword, as shown in these examples:

val dawn = Person("Dawn")
val a = Array(Person("Dan"), Person("Elijah"))

The apply method in a companion object is treated specially by the Scala compiler and lets you create new instances of your class without requiring the new keyword. (More on this in the Discussion.)

Declare your class as a case class

The second solution to the problem is to declare your class as a case class, defining it with the desired constructor: ...