97

What are package objects, not so much the concept but their usage?

I've tried to get an example working and the only form I got to work was as follows:

package object investigations {
    val PackageObjectVal = "A package object val"
}

package investigations {

    object PackageObjectTest {
        def main(args: Array[String]) {
            println("Referencing a package object val: " + PackageObjectVal)
        }
    }
}

Observations I've made so far are:

package object _root_ { ... }

is disallowed (which is reasonable),

package object x.y { ... }

is also disallowed.

It seems that a package object must be declared in the immediate parent package and, if written as above, the brace delimited package declaration form is required.

Are they in common use? If so, how?

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3

4 Answers 4

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136

Normally you would put your package object in a separate file called package.scala in the package that it corresponds to. You can also use the nested package syntax but that is quite unusual.

The main use case for package objects is when you need definitions in various places inside your package as well as outside the package when you use the API defined by the package. Here is an example:

// file: foo/bar/package.scala

package foo

package object bar {

  // package wide constants:
  def BarVersionString = "1.0"

  // or type aliases
  type StringMap[+T] = Map[String,T]

  // can be used to emulate a package wide import
  // especially useful when wrapping a Java API
  type DateTime = org.joda.time.DateTime

  type JList[T] = java.util.List[T]

  // Define implicits needed to effectively use your API:
  implicit def a2b(a: A): B = // ...

}

Now the definitions inside that package object are available inside the whole package foo.bar. Furthermore the definitions get imported when someone outside of that package imports foo.bar._.

This way you can prevent to require the API client to issue additional imports to use your library effectively - e.g. in scala-swing you need to write

import swing._
import Swing._

to have all the goodness like onEDT and implicit conversions from Tuple2 to Dimension.

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3 Comments

Word of caution: method overloading doesn't work in package objects.
Beats me why it had been chosen that the package object should be defined one level up the package hierarchy. E.g. this means you need to pollute the virtual org or com top level package with your package object if you wish for it to belong to your own root package e.g. org.foo. I find that allowing the definition to be directly under the package it should be a part of - would have been slightly more proper language api interface.
Note that since at least Scala 2.10 and above overloading does work in package objects.
58

While Moritz's answer is spot on, one additional thing to note is that package objects are objects. Among other things, this means you can build them up from traits, using mix-in inheritance. Moritz's example could be written as 

package object bar extends Versioning 
                          with JodaAliases 
                          with JavaAliases {

  // package wide constants:
  override val version = "1.0"

  // or type aliases
  type StringMap[+T] = Map[String,T]

  // Define implicits needed to effectively use your API:
  implicit def a2b(a: A): B = // ...

}

Here Versioning is an abstract trait, which says that the package object must have a "version" method, while JodaAliases and JavaAliases are concrete traits containing handy type aliases. All of these traits can be reused by many different package objects.

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2 Comments

The whole topic is opening up a lot and it does seem to be used to it's full potential, thanks for another rich example.
but they cannot be used as vals, so they're not really objects
7

You could do worse than to go straight to the source. :)

https://lampsvn.epfl.ch/trac/scala/browser/scala/trunk/src/library/scala/package.scala

https://lampsvn.epfl.ch/trac/scala/browser/scala/trunk/src/library/scala/collection/immutable/package.scala

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1 Comment

@Alex Cruise, thanks, this seems to suggest that they need a separate compilation unit (which perhaps gets round the brace delimited package restriction). The problem is I want some solid user advice rather than my own conjecture about how to use them.
7

The main use case for package objects is when you need definitions in various places inside your package as well as outside the package when you use the API defined by the package.

Not so with Scala 3, scheduled to be released mid-2020, based on Dotty, as in here:

Toplevel Definitions

All kinds of definitions can be written on the toplevel.
Package objects are no longer needed, will be phased out.

package p 

type Labelled[T] = (String, T) 
val a: Labelled[Int] = ("count", 1) 
def b = a._2 
def hello(name: String) = println(i"hello, $name)
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1 Comment

Thanks @VonC, I am really looking forward to Scala 3 for this and many other reasons. I have not made much use of package objects but I am sure I will use top level definitions.

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