[erlang-questions] Matching Empty maps

[Dmytro Lytovchenko]

Trying to have a comfortable syntax brings all sorts of special cases not
covered. One should use == or =:= in a guard, or true = (X == #{}) which is
ugly.

2017-02-07 12:45 GMT+01:00 Joe Armstrong <erlang@REDACTED>:

> Ten minutes ago I was happily recursing down a list and discovered
> to my horror that an empty map isn't an empty map.
>
> 1> #{} = #{a => 1}.
> #{a => 1}
>
> The documentation actually says:
>
> <quote>
> #{} = Expr
>
> This expression matches if the expression Expr is of type map,
> otherwise it fails with an exception badmatch.
> </quote>
>
> So #{} is an empty map in an argument position but not an empty map
> in a pattern.
>
> So this is not a bug since the system does what the documentation says
> but it is very weird.
>
> Is there some deep reason for this that I've missed ??????
>
> Very Puzzled
>
> /Joe
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