Iterating over Java collections in Scala

BefittingTheorem picture BefittingTheorem · Jan 30, 2009 · Viewed 81.1k times · Source

I'm writing some Scala code which uses the Apache POI API. I would like to iterate over the rows contained in the java.util.Iterator that I get from the Sheet class. I would like to use the iterator in a for each style loop, so I have been trying to convert it to a native Scala collection but will no luck.

I have looked at the Scala wrapper classes/traits, but I can not see how to use them correctly. How do I iterate over a Java collection in Scala without using the verbose while(hasNext()) getNext() style of loop?

Here's the code I wrote based on the correct answer:

class IteratorWrapper[A](iter:java.util.Iterator[A])
{
    def foreach(f: A => Unit): Unit = {
        while(iter.hasNext){
          f(iter.next)
        }
    }
}

object SpreadsheetParser extends Application
{
    implicit def iteratorToWrapper[T](iter:java.util.Iterator[T]):IteratorWrapper[T] = new IteratorWrapper[T](iter)

    override def main(args:Array[String]):Unit =
    {
        val ios = new FileInputStream("assets/data.xls")
        val workbook = new HSSFWorkbook(ios)
        var sheet = workbook.getSheetAt(0)
        var rows = sheet.rowIterator()

        for (val row <- rows){
            println(row)
        }
    }
}

Answer

ttonelli picture ttonelli · Oct 26, 2009

As of Scala 2.8, all you have to do is to import the JavaConversions object, which already declares the appropriate conversions.

import scala.collection.JavaConversions._

This won't work in previous versions though.