The method sliding on collections returns a sliding window of given size in the form of X[Iterable[A]] with X being the type of the collection and A the element type. Often I need two or three elements and I prefer to have them named. One ugly workaround for sliding(2) is the following: points.sliding(2).foreach{ twoPoints => val (p1,p2) = (twoPoints.head,twoPoints.last) //do something } This sucks and only works for two elements. Also note that (a,b) = (twoPoints(0),twoPoints(1)) doesn't work. Help me!