Scala Option symbolic syntax

Saw something interesting in a modern Scala codebase and extrapolated this out of it:

/** Helpers to make Option syntax more succinct. */
object OptionUtils {
  /** Shortcut type symbol for the Option type. */
  type ?[A] = Option[A]

  /** Enables `foo.?` instead of `Some(foo)` */
  implicit class OptionSome[A](val a: A) extends AnyVal {
    @inline def `?`: ?[A] = Option(a)
  }

  implicit class OptionOps[A](val option: ?[A]) extends AnyVal {
    /** Enables `foo.!` instead of `foo.get`. Use with caution as usual! */
    @inline def `!`: A = option.get

    /** Enables `foo ?? bar` instead of `foo.getOrElse(bar)`. Called the
        nil-coalescing operator in Swift. */
    @inline def `??`(default: => A): A = option.getOrElse(default)

    /** Enables `foo ?? bar` instead of `foo.orElse(bar)`. */
    @inline def `??`(default: => ?[A]): ?[A] = option.orElse(default)
  }
}

Thoughts? Complaints? Note that Swift provides similar syntax ( https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/optional#2849660 ), so it’s not terribly innovative.

Looks good except one spot. I’d change ?:

@inline def `?`: ?[A] = Option(a)

in case a is null.
Having two functions named ?? is a little confusing, since one returns an Option, while the other does not. Maybe ?! for the one that uses getOrElse?

Thanks for the feedback! Agreed about using Option to guard against null. For the other one–I get your point, I just want an API where I don’t care about the specific types too much as long as it’s still type-safe and the basic logic is followed (this-or-that). Also, it works the same way in Swift without too much trouble :slight_smile:

Nice idea. But I would use it as a personal tool, and then share the code without the sugar. I wander how I could transform the code back to Option (scalafix?)