title: Declare a variable without an initial value
body: <p><a href="http://www.tutorialspoint.com/scala/scala_variables.htm" rel="noreferrer">This Scala tutorial</a> has the following to say about declaring variables without an initial value:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>If you do not assign any initial value to a variable, then it is valid as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var myVar :Int;  
  val myVal :String;
  </code></pre>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>But when I try that code in the Scala REPL, I get these errors:</p>
  
  <pre><code>scala&gt; var myVar :Int;
  &lt;console&gt;:10: error: only classes can have declared but undefined members
  (Note that variables need to be initialized to be defined)
         var myVar :Int;
             ^
  
  scala&gt; val myVal :String;
  &lt;console&gt;:10: error: only classes can have declared but undefined members
         val myVal :String;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why is this? Is the tutorial for an older version of Scala?<br>
  I couldn't find a specific version of Scala that the tutorial is written for, but I am running Scala version 2.11.7 on OpenJDK 64bit, Java 1.8.0_66.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>Is the tutorial outdated, or is the problem with my environment?</p></li>
  <li><p>Is it possible to declare a variable (var or val) without initializing it?</p></li>
  </ul>