Category: Scala

I just started learning Scala last week. I created a stub method in one of my programs but was getting an error. Here’s my function:

def howMuch(max: Int) {
  var n = 0
  n
}

I tried to use the result in expression, e.g.

var m = 1
var n = howMuch(100)
m += n

Here’s the error I received:

error: overloaded method value - with alternatives:
  (x: Int)Int <and>
  (x: Char)Int <and>
  (x: Short)Int <and>
  (x: Byte)Int
 cannot be applied to (Unit)
             m += n

It seemed clear to me that my function should be returning an Int, namely zero. Why was it returning the Unit value?

Answer: a missing equals sign in the function assignment. Here’s the function that returns an Int:

def howMuch(max: Int) = {
  var n = 0
  n
}