Use StringLike instead of String in Scala?

Question

Scala has the StringLike trait. Let's say I want to create a case class Name and internally it should save the name with some characters. Should I use case class Name(name: StringLike) or case class Name(name: String)?

The former is obviously more abstract. It means someone can give me CustomString that extends StringLike and he might overwrite some methods.

If I want to be sure the given argument behaves like the String class I know, I should use String and else StringLike. Is that correct? Are there cases in which it would make a practically difference?

Also, are there things I can do with the more specialized String that I can't do with a StringLike?

Answer 1

Although it's usually good practice to accept as abstract of arguments as possible, in Scala you generally want to avoid directly using any types with [Repr] parameters. They are mostly there for the convenience of the standard library implementors.

That's especially true for StringLike, which is primarily intended to augment a Java String to be able to also act like a collection of characters. You're not supposed to look at the man behind the curtain to see how that's accomplished. Nor is it expected that anyone would ever make a custom StringLike implementation.

String is also much better from a simple readability standpoint. If you need something that behaves like a String, just use a String. In the extremely remote chance you ever need something kind of like a String, but not really, you can make the change then, and there may be a better solution.