Pattern matching on abstract types with Scala 2.10.0

Scala 2.10.0 is out, and one of its greatest improvements is a completely new pattern matching algorithm on the compiler. That algorithm fixes lots of bugs that have existed all the way up to 2.9.x and adds more and better static checks.

One interesting thing that has probably gone unnoticed by most, however, is that it can do more than what the old pattern matcher did, in at least one respect: it can match against abstract types, provides a ClassTag.

To understand that better, consider this REPL session on Scala 2.9.2:

scala> def f[T: ClassManifest](l: List[Any]) = l collect {
     |   case x: T => x
     | }
<console>:8: warning: abstract type T in type pattern T is unchecked sin
ce it is eliminated by erasure
         case x: T => x
                 ^
f: [T](l: List[Any])(implicit evidence$1: ClassManifest[T])List[T]

scala> f[String](List(1, 2.0, "three"))
res0: List[String] = List(1, 2.0, three)

Now let's look at what can be done with Scala 2.10.0:

scala> import scala.reflect.ClassTag
import scala.reflect.ClassTag

scala> def f[T: ClassTag](l: List[Any]) = l collect {
     |   case x: T => x
     | }
f: [T](l: List[Any])(implicit evidence$1: scala.reflect.ClassTag[T])List
[T]

scala> f[Int](List(1, 2.0, "three")) // It can't find Int because they are boxed
res0: List[Int] = List()

scala> f[String](List(1, 2.0, "three")) // But AnyRefs are ok
res1: List[String] = List(three)

Note that it doesn't reify types -- that is, it can't tell whether your List[Any] is a List[String], but it does go a bit further than what was possible before.