scala - What is return type of `if` statement

Question

From Programming Scala book I read that in following code configFilePath constant will be type of Unit:

scala> val configFilePath = if (configFile.exists()) {
| configFile.getAbsolutePath()
| }
configFilePath: Unit = ()

But when I execute this code in REPL I get result of type Any. Why?

The book examples use Scala 2.8, and I use Scala 2.10.

Answer 1

if (cond) { expr } returns common base type of Unit and type of expr, just like if (cond) { expr } else { () }.

It is AnyVal for Int, Char and so on, Unit for Unit and Any for AnyRef:

scala> if ( false ) 1
res0: AnyVal = ()

scala> val r = if ( false ) { () }
r: Unit = ()

scala> if ( false ) ""
res1: Any = ()