Using futures with actors

In this recipe, we will see how to use a future with an actor, and how to retrieve the result of a computation done by a future.

Getting ready

Just import the Hello-Akka project, and the other prerequisites are the same as earlier.

How to do it...

The following are the steps to use a future with an actor and to retrieve a result of the computation:

1. Create a scala file, FutureWithActor.scala, in the com.packt.chapter4 package.
2. Add the following imports to the top of the file:

        import akka.actor.{Actor, ActorSystem, Props} 
        import akka.pattern.ask 
        import akka.util.Timeout 
        import scala.concurrent.Await 
        import scala.concurrent.duration._ 

3. Create an actor that calculates the sum of two integers and sends it back to the sender, as shown in the following code snippet:

        class ComputationActor extends Actor { 
          def receive = { 
            case (a: Int, b: Int) => sender ! (a + b) 
          } 
        } 

4. Create the sample...