Abstract Classes

Scala also has a concept of an abstract class that is similar to Java’s abstract class. But because traits are so powerful, you rarely need to use an abstract class. In fact, you only need to use an abstract class when:

• You want to create a base class that requires constructor arguments
• Your Scala code will be called from Java code

Scala traits don’t allow constructor parameters

Regarding the first reason, Scala traits don’t allow constructor parameters:

// this won’t compile
trait Animal(name: String)

Therefore, you need to use an abstract class whenever a base behavior must have constructor parameters:

abstract class Animal(name: String)

However, be aware that a class can extend only one abstract class.

When Scala code will be called from Java code

Regarding the second point — the second time when you’ll need to use an abstract class — because Java doesn’t know anything about Scala traits, if you want to call your Scala code from Java code, you’ll need to use an abstract class rather than a trait.

Abstract class syntax

The abstract class syntax is similar to the trait syntax. For example, here’s an abstract class named Pet that’s similar to the Pet trait we defined in the previous lesson:

abstract class Pet (name: String) {
    def speak(): Unit = println("Yo")   // concrete implementation
    def comeToMaster(): Unit            // abstract method
}

Given that abstract Pet class, you can define a Dog class like this:

class Dog(name: String) extends Pet(name) {
    override def speak() = println("Woof")
    def comeToMaster() = println("Here I come!")
}

The REPL shows that this all works as advertised:

scala> val d = new Dog("Rover")
d: Dog = Dog@51f1fe1c

scala> d.speak
Woof

scala> d.comeToMaster
Here I come!

Notice how name was passed along

All of that code is similar to Java, so we won’t explain it in detail. One thing to notice is how the name constructor parameter is passed from the Dog class constructor to the Pet constructor:

class Dog(name: String) extends Pet(name) {

Remember that Pet is declared to take name as a constructor parameter:

abstract class Pet (name: String) { ...

Therefore, this example shows how to pass the constructor parameter from the Dog class to the Pet abstract class. You can verify that this works with this code:

abstract class Pet (name: String) {
    def speak: Unit = println(s"My name is $name")
}

class Dog(name: String) extends Pet(name)

val d = new Dog("Fido")
d.speak

We encourage you to copy and paste that code into the REPL to be sure that it works as expected, and then experiment with it as desired.