scala.reflect

ClassManifestFactory defines factory methods for manifests. It is intended for use by the compiler and should not be used in client code.

Unlike ClassManifest, this factory isn't annotated with a deprecation warning. This is done to prevent avalanches of deprecation warnings in the code that calls methods with manifests.

In a perfect world, we would just remove the @deprecated annotation from ClassManifest the object and then delete it in 2.11. After all, that object is explicitly marked as internal, so no one should use it. However a lot of existing libraries disregarded the Scaladoc that comes with ClassManifest, so we need to somehow nudge them into migrating prior to removing stuff out of the blue. Hence we've introduced this design decision as the lesser of two evils.

A ClassTag[T] stores the erased class of a given type T, accessible via the runtimeClass field. This is particularly useful for instantiating Arrays whose element types are unknown at compile time.

ClassTags are a weaker special case of scala.reflect.api.TypeTags.TypeTags, in that they wrap only the runtime class of a given type, whereas a TypeTag contains all static type information. That is, ClassTags are constructed from knowing only the top-level class of a type, without necessarily knowing all of its argument types. This runtime information is enough for runtime Array creation.

For example:

scala> def mkArray[T : ClassTag](elems: T*) = Array[T](elems: _*)
mkArray: [T](elems: T*)(implicit evidence$1: scala.reflect.ClassTag[T])Array[T]

scala> mkArray(42, 13)
res0: Array[Int] = Array(42, 13)

scala> mkArray("Japan","Brazil","Germany")
res1: Array[String] = Array(Japan, Brazil, Germany)

See scala.reflect.api.TypeTags for more examples, or the Reflection Guide: TypeTags for more details.

A Manifest[T] is an opaque descriptor for type T. Its supported use is to give access to the erasure of the type as a Class instance, as is necessary for the creation of native Arrays if the class is not known at compile time.

The type-relation operators <:< and =:= should be considered approximations only, as there are numerous aspects of type conformance which are not yet adequately represented in manifests.

Example usages:

def arr[T] = new Array[T](0)                          // does not compile
def arr[T](implicit m: Manifest[T]) = new Array[T](0) // compiles
def arr[T: Manifest] = new Array[T](0)                // shorthand for the preceding

// Methods manifest and optManifest are in [[scala.Predef]].
def isApproxSubType[T: Manifest, U: Manifest] = manifest[T] <:< manifest[U]
isApproxSubType[List[String], List[AnyRef]] // true
isApproxSubType[List[String], List[Int]]    // false

def methods[T: Manifest] = manifest[T].runtimeClass.getMethods
def retType[T: Manifest](name: String) =
  methods[T] find (_.getName == name) map (_.getGenericReturnType)

retType[Map[_, _]]("values")  // Some(scala.collection.Iterable)