'Symbol is actually syntactic sugar for Symbol("Symbol") which is part of
the Scala standard library. It is a core feature of Scala which IMO is
perfectly fine to use. I'm not sure whether it makes the expression much
easier to read but it is a neat feature already in place.
@Stephan: As far as I know, the String-based parsing is already possible in
the Scala Table API.
On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 2:51 PM, Stephan Ewen <se...@apache.org> wrote:
> I am not a deep Scala progammer either, but I think the symbols are a
> pretty wide-spread concept.
> For example, the Scalding tuple API makes heavy use of them as well.
>
> That said, I do like the idea that the Scala Table API supports the string
> variant as well, for homogeneity.
>
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 1:12 PM, Ufuk Celebi <u...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> > Hey all,
> >
> > I am not very proficient with Scala and have some questions regarding the
> > Scala Table API:
> >
> > The logical queries in the Java API are all String-based, e.g.
> >
> > table.groupBy("word")
> >
> > In the Scala API, this works as well, but what's further possible is
> this:
> >
> > expr.groupBy('word)
> >
> > For comparisions you use something like `a === `b. Note that the ' is a
> > Scala symbol.
> >
> > - How common is this kind of notation for Scala users?
> > - Are both types of expressions equivalent or can you do more with the
> > special Scala syntax Table API?
> >
> > I am asking, because I was wondering whether we should stick to the
> > String-based notation in the docs and have the special syntax as an
> > optional thing. There is no reason for this, if this is common in the
> Scala
> > world though. :-)
> >
> > – Ufuk
> >
>
