Question

My code is becoming littered with the following code pattern:

val opt = somethingReturningAnOpt
if (opt.isDefinedAt) {
    val actualThingIWant = opt.get
}

Is there some way to simplify this? (it seems needlessly complex and a code smell). Ideally it would be something like:

if (Some(actualThingIWant) = somethingReturningAnOpt) {
   doSomethingWith(actualThingIWant)
}

Is anything like that possible?

Answer 1

Maybe something like this:

somethingReturningAnOpt match {
  case Some(actualThingIWant) => doSomethingWith(actualThingIWant)
  case None =>
}

or as pst suggests:

somethingReturningAnOpt.foreach { actualThingIWant =>
  doSomethingWith(actualThingIWant)
}

// or...

for (actualThingIWant <- somethingReturningAnOpt) {
  doSomethingWith(actualThingIWant)
}