Scala Fold Examples

Scala Fold Examples

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fold foldLeft foldRight
Order of
appplication
Applied in no particular order, so the
function needs to be commutative
Applied from left to rightApplied from right to left

fold

.fold(initialState)((anElement, anotherElement) => newState)

Apply the given function to the initial state and all collection elements:

Example: sum numbers in collection, with initial state of 2

val seq = Seq(1,2,3)

seq.fold(2)((elem1, elem2) => a+b)
// res: Int = 8

foldLeft

.foldLeft(initialState)((currentState, currentElement) => newState)

Apply the given function to the initial state and all collection elements, starting from left to right

Example: sum numbers in collection

val seq = Seq(1,2,3)

// accum is short for "accumulator"
seq.foldLeft(0)((accum, elem) => accum + elem)
// res: Int = 6

foldLeft, state with different types

.foldLeft(initialState)((currentState, currentElement) => newState)

The state you keep doesn't need to be of the same type as the collection elements:

Example: sum the lengths of strings in collection

val seq = Seq("foo", "bar", "baz")

// accum is short for "accumulator"
seq.foldLeft(0)((accum, elem) => accum + elem.size)
// res: Int = 9

foldLeft, string concat

.foldLeft(initialState)((currentState, currentElement) => newState)

foldleft is frequently used to concatenate strings into a single string

val seq = Seq("foo", "bar", "baz")

// accum is short for "accumulator"
seq.foldLeft("")((accum, elem) => accum + elem)
// res: String = "foobarbaz"

foldRight

.foldRight(initialState)((element, currentState) => newState))

Same as foldLeft but the collection is traversed from right to left and the order of the parameters in the passed function is inversed: (elem, accum) instead of (accum, elem)

Example concatenate strings from right to left

val seq = Seq("foo", "bar", "baz")

// accum is short for "accumulator"
seq.foldRight("")((elem, accum) => accum + elem)
//res: String = "bazbarfoo"

Fold vs Reduce

fold reduce
Order of
appplication
foldLeft and foldRight variantsreduceLeft and reduceRight variants
State type State can be of any typeState must be of the same
type as the elements