Why do we need `var`?

[jxnu-liguobin]

I am confused with these codes.

What are the requirements for using var and it needs to be public?
Every time I call method getLPAConfig, var changes, so this var is unreliable as "static", why are we doing this?

case class LPAConfig(maxIter: Int, encodeId: Boolean = false)

object LPAConfig {
  var maxIter: Int      = _
  var encodeId: Boolean = false

  def getLPAConfig(configs: Configs): LPAConfig = {
    val lpaConfig = configs.algorithmConfig.map

    maxIter = lpaConfig("algorithm.labelpropagation.maxIter").toInt
    encodeId = ConfigUtil.getOrElseBoolean(lpaConfig, "algorithm.labelpropagation.encodeId", false)
    LPAConfig(maxIter, encodeId)
  }
}

[Nicole00]

the original intention is to set default value for some configs. But the default value is set in GetOrElse function, so the var looks no useless.
we can update it as

     val maxIter = lpaConfig("algorithm.labelpropagation.maxIter").toInt
    val encodeId = ConfigUtil.getOrElseBoolean(lpaConfig, "algorithm.labelpropagation.encodeId", false)
    LPAConfig(maxIter, encodeId)