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Streams

A Stream is like a list except that its elements are computed lazily. Because of this, a stream can be infinitely long. Only those elements requested are computed. Otherwise, streams have the same performance characteristics as lists.

Whereas lists are constructed with the :: operator, streams are constructed with the similar-looking #::. Here is a simple example of a stream containing the integers 1, 2, and 3:

scala> val str = 1 #:: 2 #:: 3 #:: Stream.empty
str: scala.collection.immutable.Stream[Int] = Stream(1, ?)

The head of this stream is 1, and the tail of it has 2 and 3. The tail is not printed here, though, because it hasn't been computed yet! Streams are specified to compute lazily, and the toString method of a stream is careful not to force any extra evaluation.

Below is a more complex example. It computes a stream that contains a Fibonacci sequence starting with the given two numbers. A Fibonacci sequence is one where each element is the sum of the previous two elements in the series.

  scala> def fibFrom(a: Int, b: Int): Stream[Int] = a #:: fibFrom(b, 
a + b)
 fibFrom: (a: Int,b: Int)Stream[Int]

This function is deceptively simple. The first element of the sequence is clearly a, and the rest of the sequence is the Fibonacci sequence starting with b followed by a + b. The tricky part is computing this sequence without causing an infinite recursion. If the function used :: instead of #::, then every call to the function would result in another call, thus causing an infinite recursion. Since it uses #::, though, the right-hand side is not evaluated until it is requested.

Here are the first few elements of the Fibonacci sequence starting with two ones:

scala> val fibs = fibFrom(1, 1).take(7)
fibs: scala.collection.immutable.Stream[Int] = Stream(1, ?)
scala> fibs.toList
res9: List[Int] = List(1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11)

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