Arithmetic Operators

In the following lesson, you will be introduced to arithmetic operators.

Arithmetic operators are operators that perform arithmetic operations such as addition and subtraction. Below is a list of the arithmetic operators supported by Scala.

Operator Use
+ Adds two operands
- Subtracts the second operand from the first
* Multiplies both operands
/ Divides the first operand by the second operand
% Finds the remainder after division of one number by another

Taking the first operand to be 1010 and the second operand to be 77, let’s look at an example for each operator.

Press + to interact
val operand1 = 10
val operand2 = 7
println(operand1 + operand2)
println(operand1 - operand2)
println(operand1 * operand2)
println(operand1 / operand2)
println(operand1 % operand2)

The output we see when we press run is the expected output. However, if you input 10/7 on your calculator, you surely won’t get 11. So why did Scala give us 11?

The reason for this is that our operands are of type Int, hence our output will also be of type Int. To keep the types consistent, Scala will only tell you the whole number part of the quotient, excluding any remainder. If you also want the remainder, all you have to do is specify, when declaring your variables, that the operands are either of type Float or Double, depending on your requirements.

Press + to interact
val operand1 = 10F
val operand2 = 7F
println(operand1 + operand2)
println(operand1 - operand2)
println(operand1 * operand2)
println(operand1 / operand2)
println(operand1 % operand2)

Running the above code should now give you an output of type Float.

That sums up arithmetic operators, let’s move on to relational operators in the next lesson.