Example of use of a companion object to provide the equivalent to Java's static methods and fields.

Person.scala

/* 3. */ object Person {

  var nextId: Int = 0;

  /* 4. */ def create(first: String, last: String): Person = {
    nextId += 1
    new Person(first, last, nextId-1)
  }
}

class Person /* 1. */ private (private val first: String, private val last: String, private val id: Int) {

  def /* 2. */ apply(f: String, l: String, id: Int) =
    new Person(first, last, id)

  def getName(): String = {
    s"$first $last"
  }

  def getId(): Int = {
    id
  }
}