Scala 2.8 breakOut

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In Scala 2.8, there is an object in scala.collection.package.scala:

def breakOut[From, T, To](implicit b : CanBuildFrom[Nothing, T, To]) =
    new CanBuildFrom[From, T, To] {
        def apply(from: From) = b.apply() ; def apply() = b.apply()
 }

I have been told that this results in:

> import scala.collection.breakOut
> val map : Map[Int,String] = List("London", "Paris").map(x => (x.length, x))(breakOut)

map: Map[Int,String] = Map(6 -> London, 5 -> Paris)

What is going on here? Why is breakOut being called as an argument to my List?

scala-2.8 scala-collections scala
4 Answers

A simple example to understand what breakOut does:

scala> import collection.breakOut
import collection.breakOut

scala> val set = Set(1, 2, 3, 4)
set: scala.collection.immutable.Set[Int] = Set(1, 2, 3, 4)

scala> set.map(_ % 2)
res0: scala.collection.immutable.Set[Int] = Set(1, 0)

scala> val seq:Seq[Int] = set.map(_ % 2)(breakOut)
seq: Seq[Int] = Vector(1, 0, 1, 0) // map created a Seq[Int] instead of the default Set[Int]
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