Scala call-by-name constructor parameter in implicit class

Question

The following code does not compile. Desired is to have a call-by-name constructor parameter in an implicit class as illustrated here,

def f(n: Int) = (1 to n) product

implicit class RichElapsed[A](val f: => A) extends AnyVal {

  def elapsed(): (A, Double) = {
    val start = System.nanoTime()
    val res = f
    val end = System.nanoTime()

    (res, (end-start)/1e6)
  }

}

where a call

val (res, time) = f(3).elapsed
res: Int = 6
time: Double = 123.0

This error is reported in REPL,

<console>:1: error: `val' parameters may not be call-by-name
       implicit class RichElapsed[A](val f: => A) extends AnyVal {

Thus to ask how RichElapsed class could be refactored.

Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

Peter Schmitz's solution to simply drop the val (along with the hope of turning RichElapsed into a value class) is certainly the simplest and least intrusive thing to do.

If you really feel like you need a value class, another alternative is this:

class RichElapsed[A](val f: () => A) extends AnyVal {

  def elapsed(): (A, Double) = {
    val start = System.nanoTime()
    val res = f()
    val end = System.nanoTime()

    (res, (end-start)/1e6)
  }
}

implicit def toRichElapsed[A]( f: => A ) = new RichElapsed[A](() => f )

Note that while using a value class as above allows to remove the instantiation of a temporary RichElapsed instance, there is still some wrapping going on (both with my solution and with Peter Schmitz's solution). Namely, the body passed by name as f is wrapped into a function instance (in Peter Schmitz's case this is not apparent in the code but will happen anyway under the hood). If you want to remove this wrapping too, I believe the only solution would be to use a macro.