Can I combine the following two cases into one case clause since they both do the same thing?
e match {
case "hello" => e + "world"
case "hi" => e + "world
}
Also, what about if I want to match using startsWith e.g.,
e match { case e.startsWith("he") | e.startsWith("hi") => ... }
Yes you can simply use or (|) to match one of the pattern,
scala> "hi" match { case "hello" | "hi" => println("fantastic") case _ => println("very very bad")}
fantastic
scala> "hello" match { case "hello" | "hi" => println("fantastic") case _ => println("very very bad")}
fantastic
scala> "something else" match { case "hello" | "hi" => println("fantastic") case _ => println("very very bad")}
very very bad
You can also use regex to pattern match, especially useful when there are many criterias to match,
scala> val startsWithHiOrHello = """hello.*|hi.*""".r
startsWithHiOrHello: scala.util.matching.Regex = hello.*|hi.*
scala> "hi there" match { case startsWithHiOrHello() => println("fantastic") case _ => println("very very bad")}
fantastic
scala> "hello there" match { case startsWithHiOrHello() => println("fantastic") case _ => println("very very bad")}
fantastic
scala> "non of hi or hello there" match { case startsWithHiOrHello() => println("fantastic") case _ => println("very very bad")}
very very bad
Refer to Scala multiple type pattern matching and Scala match case on regex directly
OR. see the updated example. you would basically need hi.*|hello.* regex