Why is my Scala function returning type Unit and not whatever is the last line?
function, scala
Solution
You have to add the equals sign if you want to return a value. Now, the reason that your function's return value is Any is that you have 2 control paths, each returning a value of a different type - 1 is when the if's condition is met (and the return value will be temp) and the other is when if's condition isn't (and the return value will be b=b+1, or b after it's incremented).
Problem
I am trying to figure out the issue, and tried different styles that I have read on Scala, but none of them work. My code is: ``` .... val str = "(and x y)"; def stringParse ( exp: String, pos: Int, expreshHolder: ArrayBuffer[String], follow: Int ) var b = pos; //position of where in the expression String I am currently in val temp = expreshHolder; //holder of expressions without parens var arrayCounter = follow; //just counts to make sure an empty spot in the array is there to put in the strings if(exp(b) == '(') { b = b + 1; while(exp(b) == ' '){b = b + 1} //point of this is to just skip any spaces between paren and start of expression type if(exp(b) == 'a') { temp(arrayCounter) = exp(b).toString; b = b+1; temp(arrayCounter)+exp(b).toString; b = b+1; temp(arrayCounter) + exp(b).toString; arrayCounter+=1} temp; } } val hold: ArrayBuffer[String] = stringParse(str, 0, new ArrayBuffer[String], 0); for(test <- hold) println(test); ``` My error is: ``` Driver.scala:35: error: type mismatch; found : Unit required: scala.collection.mutable.ArrayBuffer[String] ho = stringParse(str, 0, ho, 0); ^one error found ``` When I add an equals sign after the arguments in the method declaration, like so: ``` def stringParse ( exp: String, pos: Int, expreshHolder: ArrayBuffer[String], follow: Int ) ={....} ``` It changes it to "Any". I am confused on how this works. Any ideas? Much appreciated.