Steps

1. How to define a function

If you have followed the tutorials from this Chapter On Functions, you should by now be familiar with defining a function.

So let's go ahead and write a function named checkDonutAvailability() which will check if a donut is available from your inventory.

But, this function will also perform some validation on the input parameter donutName.

println("Step 1: How to define a function")
def checkDonutAvailability(donutName: String): Boolean = {
  // retrieve donut list that is currently in stock
  val listDonutsFromStock: List[String] = List("Vanilla Donut", "Strawberry Donut", "Plain Donut", "Glazed Donut")

  val iDonutInStock = (donutName.nonEmpty && donutName.length > 0) && (listDonutsFromStock contains donutName)

  iDonutInStock
}

NOTE:

• Sure we could have inlined the body of this function but we are showing each individual step so you can easily compare with the nested function equivalent later on.

2. How to call a function

Once again, calling a function which has an input parameter should be straight-forward as shown below.

println("\nStep 2: How to call a function")
println(s"Calling checkDonutAvailability with Vanilla Donut = ${checkDonutAvailability("Vanilla Donut")}")

You should see the following output when you run your Scala application in IntelliJ:

Step 2: How to call a function
Calling checkDonutAvailability with Vanilla Donut = true

3. How to define a Nested Function

If you look closely at the function defined in step 1, you could easily encapsulate the validation logic into a separate function.

For the sake of this example, let's assume that the validation logic is tightly coupled with the function itself and should not be visible by any other functions. As a result, we can use a Nested Function as shown below.

println("\nStep 3: How to define a Nested Function")
def checkDonutAvailabilityWithNestedFunction(donutName: String): Boolean = {
  // retrieve donut list that is currently in stock
  val listDonutsFromStock = List[String]("Vanilla Donut", "Strawberry Donut", "Plain Donut", "Glazed Donut")

  // validate the donutName parameter by some business logic
  val validate = (name: String) => {
    name.nonEmpty && name.length > 0
  }

  // first run validate and then check if we have a matching donut from our list
  val isDonutInStock = validate(donutName) && (listDonutsFromStock contains donutName)

  isDonutInStock
}

NOTE:

• We've defined a value function named validate() which should be familiar from the Function Stored As Values Tutorial.
• As a result, the body of the function becomes less cluttered and more clear to read.

4. How to call a Nested Function

The nested function named validate() from Step 3 should never be visible by anyone else. Hence, calling a function which has nested function in its body is inherently the same as calling any other function.

println("\nStep 4: How to call a Nested Function")
println(s"Calling checkDonutAvailabilityWithNestedFunction with Vanilla Donut = ${checkDonutAvailabilityWithNestedFunction("Vanilla Donut")}")

You should see the following output when you run your Scala application in IntelliJ:

Step 4: How to call a Nested Function
Calling checkDonutAvailabilityWithNestedFunction with Vanilla Donut = true