Call by name vs call by value in Scala, clarification

First, let's assume we have a function with a side-effect. This function prints something out and then returns an Int.

def something() = {
  println("calling something")
  1 // return value
}

Now we are going to define two function that accept Int arguments that are exactly the same except that one takes the argument in a call-by-value style (x: Int) and the other in a call-by-name style (x: => Int).

def callByValue(x: Int) = {
  println("x1=" + x)
  println("x2=" + x)
}

def callByName(x: => Int) = {
  println("x1=" + x)
  println("x2=" + x)
}

Now what happens when we call them with our side-effecting function?

scala> callByValue(something())
calling something
x1=1
x2=1

scala> callByName(something())
calling something
x1=1
calling something
x2=1

So you can see that in the call-by-value version, the side-effect of the passed-in function call (something()) only happened once. However, in the call-by-name version, the side-effect happened twice.

This is because call-by-value functions compute the passed-in expression's value before calling the function, thus the same value is accessed every time. Instead, call-by-name functions recompute the passed-in expression's value every time it is accessed.

Another Example:

Imagine you want to build a "nagger app" that will Nag you every time since time last you got nagged.

Examine the following implementations:

object main  {

    def main(args: Array[String]) {

        def onTime(time: Long) {
            while(time != time) println("Time to Nag!")
            println("no nags for you!")
        }

        def onRealtime(time: => Long) {
            while(time != time) println("Realtime Nagging executed!")
        }

        onTime(System.nanoTime())
        onRealtime(System.nanoTime())
    }
}

In the above implementation the nagger will work only when passing by name the reason is that, when passing by value it will re-used and therefore the value will not be re-evaluated while when passing by name the value will be re-evaluated every time the variables is accessed