Understanding Scala -> syntax

问题

I am getting a taste of Scala through the artima "Programming in Scala" book.

While presenting the Map traits, the authors go to some lengths to describe the -> syntax as a method that can be applied to any type to get a tuple.

And indeed:

scala> (2->"two")
res1: (Int, String) = (2,two)

scala> (2,"two")
res2: (Int, String) = (2,two)

scala> (2->"two") == (2, "two")
res3: Boolean = true

But those are not equivalent:

scala> Map(1->"one") + (2->"two")
res4: scala.collection.immutable.Map[Int,String] = Map(1 -> one, 2 -> two)

scala> Map(1->"one") + (2, "two")
<console>:8: error: type mismatch; 
found   : Int(2)
required: (Int, ?)
             Map(1->"one") + (2, "two")

Why is this so, since my first tests seem to show that both "pair" syntaxes build a tuple?

Regards.

回答1:

They are exactly the same, thanks to this class in Predef (only partly reproduced here):

final class ArrowAssoc[A](val __leftOfArrow: A) extends AnyVal {
  @inline def -> [B](y: B): Tuple2[A, B] = Tuple2(__leftOfArrow, y)
}
@inline implicit def any2ArrowAssoc[A](x: A): ArrowAssoc[A] = new ArrowAssoc(x)

So now the question is when will (a,b) syntax be ambiguous where (a -> b) is not? And the answer is in function calls, especially when they're overloaded:

def f[A](a: A) = a.toString
def f[A,B](a: A, b: B) = a.hashCode + b.hashCode
f(1,2)     // Int = 3
f(1 -> 2)  // String = (1,2)
f((1, 2))  // String = (1,2)

Map + in particular gets confused because it's overloaded with a multiple-argument version, so you could

Map(1 -> 2) + (3 -> 4, 4 -> 5, 5 -> 6)

and it thus interprets

Map(1 -> 2) + (3, 4)

as trying to add both 3 to the map, and then 4 to the map. Which of course makes no sense, but it doesn't try the other interpretation.

With -> there is no such ambiguity.

However, you can't

Map(1 -> 2) + 3 -> 4

because + and - have the same precedence. Thus it is interpreted as

(Map(1 -> 2) + 3) -> 4

which again fails because you're trying to add 3 in place of a key-value pair.

来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17307472/understanding-scala-syntax