Puzzling linter message for private var that is never updated.

[tpolecat]

If you create a class with a private var that is never updated you get a puzzling linter warning:

scala> class A { private var x = 1; val y = x }
<console>:11: warning: private setter of x in class A is never used
       class A { private var x = 1; val y = x }
                             ^

Since users don't typically know that getter/setter pairs are generated it might be more useful to say something like private var x in class A is never updated and could be a val, or similar.

This is in 2.12.2 with -Xlint.

[som-snytt]

The wording is inherited from -Ywarn-unused in 2.12.1. The workaround is to make it private[this] so it doesn't warn at all. When I noticed the wording, I was too tired to bust up the tidy code.

I'm not sure that the equivalence of vars and get/setters isn't widely known, at least among Java refugees. But maybe it could say "synthetic setter x_= of x".

[tpolecat]

I'm not sure that the equivalence of vars and get/setters isn't widely known, at least among Java refugees.

Since it's normally observed only when calling from Java it's easy to forget. For me anyway. I never think about getters and setters for fields because there's no reason to think they're there.

[som-snytt]

The browser tab just says, Puzzling linter mess....

[som-snytt]

That old reference was a typo...

[lrytz]

scala/scala#6190