What language is Scala written in, and where can the source be found?

Question

What language is Scala written in?

Where does one get the source code of Scala? i'm looking for the Scala source itself, not a project written in Scala.

Note: I've seen https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2135966/where-do-i-find-an-open-source-project-written-in-scala among some other discussions here.

"We don’t allow questions seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries, and more. You can edit the question so it can be answered with facts and citations." This simply does not hold in this case.... — Mehdi LAMRANI, Jul 30 '20 at 18:44

score 24 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

24

Scala is [now] written in Scala. This process (of creating a language/compiler that can be used to build itself) is known as "bootstrapping".

The scalac source code can be found on GitHub scala/scala:

[GitHub scala] is the repository for the Scala Programming Language.

For the "compiler guts", start looking in nsc - New Scala Compiler.

Also see the Scala Developer Documentation "portal" which briefly hints how newer Scala/scalac versions are layered on top of previous builds.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

Community

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answered Oct 25 '13 at 03:12

user2864740

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thx - this what i've been looking for. i guess i expected to find it on my disk, like the JDK source – Roam Oct 25 '13 at 04:22
Scalac pre-Scala 2.0 was written in Java. Why do you say it was not? – Daniel C. Sobral Oct 25 '13 at 06:32
@Roam If you asked for the source code to be installed when you installed Scala, you'll find the source on the `src` subdirectory on Scala home, as jars. – Daniel C. Sobral Oct 25 '13 at 06:35
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@user2864740 Go to the github repo, grab any tag prior to 2.0. Pizza was a different language Odersky created before Scala. – Daniel C. Sobral Oct 25 '13 at 06:36

score 5 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 21 '15 at 22:02

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Scala is written in Scala itself, and I think user2864740 has already explained a little bit about 'bootstrap'.

For the source code exploring, Github is definitely a good place, but I happened to know a good place Codatlas to view Scala Source Code, which provides some very essential IDE features, like jump to definition and cross reference. To me it has better code browsing experience than GitHub on the web.

For example, Array class is a good place to start.

I used it a lot recently to view Scala source code. Hope this helps.

edited Jan 21 '15 at 22:02

hexabunny

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answered Jan 16 '15 at 06:55

BigGameHunter

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Both these links are dead – 0x263A Aug 24 '22 at 02:42

What language is Scala written in, and where can the source be found?

2 Answers2