Match Expressions

The syntactical precedence of match expressions has been changed. match is still a keyword, but it is used like an alphabetical operator. This has several consequences:

1. match expressions can be chained:

   scalaCopy

   xs match {
     case Nil => "empty"
     case _   => "nonempty"
   } match {
     case "empty"    => 0
     case "nonempty" => 1
   }
   

   (or, dropping the optional braces)

   scalaCopy

   xs match
     case Nil => "empty"
     case _   => "nonempty"
   match
     case "empty" => 0
     case "nonempty" => 1
   

2. match may follow a period:

   scalaCopy

   if xs.match
     case Nil => false
     case _   => true
   then "nonempty"
   else "empty"
   

3. The scrutinee of a match expression must be an InfixExpr. Previously the scrutinee could be followed by a type ascription : T, but this is no longer supported. So x : T match { ... } now has to be written (x: T) match { ... }.

Syntax

The new syntax of match expressions is as follows.

InfixExpr    ::=  ...
               |  InfixExpr MatchClause
SimpleExpr   ::=  ...
               |  SimpleExpr ‘.’ MatchClause
MatchClause  ::=  ‘match’ ‘{’ CaseClauses ‘}’