Question

How do we implement loops functionally in Scala? What is the difference between OOP and FP style loops?

Answer 1

We know how to implement loops in Object-Oriented style: Using Mutable Temporary variables, update the variable value and use Loop constructs. It is very tedious and unsafe approach. It is not Thread-Safe. Object-Oriented style uses the following constructs to implement Loops:

1. Loop Constructs
2. Mutability
3. Side Effects

We can implement same Loops differently in Functional way. It is Thread-Safe. We can use the following two techniques to implement the loops in functional style:

1. Recursion
2. Tail-Recursion
3. Immutability
4. No Side-Effects