Question

This is useful when I don’t want to use implicits but would like to have a function to convert from (e.g.) Int to MyClass.

Answer 1

In Scala, an object is used to define static methods. What you are describing sounds like you want this:

class MyClass(n: Int)

object MyClass {
  def apply(n: Int) = new MyClass(n)
}

So that you can do either of these:

scala> val a = MyClass.apply(3)
a: MyClass = MyClass@70d1c9b5

scala> val b = MyClass(3)       // works allowed because method is called "apply"
b: MyClass = MyClass@1b4b2db7

I would call this a “factory method”.