Actually you get an instance of Seq (BoxedArray) of that repeated parameter but you can operate it (in Scala) like operating an Array.

If you want to operate it within the function as an Array (or pass it to Java), you must unboxed it using that suggestion.

If you want to pass it as an Array[Any] to another scala function what you only need to do is call x.toArray[Any]. Although you get another BoxedAnyArray, but when passing the parameter to a scala function, compiler will auto-unboxed it. Check following two function:

def a(is:Any*){
println(is.getClass)
println(is.toArray[Any].getClass)
b(is.toArray[Any])
}

def b(is:Array[Any]){
println(is.getClass)
println(is)
}

a(1, “String”)

you will get following output: (I tested this using Scala 2.7.1)
class scala.runtime.BoxedObjectArray
class scala.runtime.BoxedAnyArray
class [Ljava.lang.Object;
[Ljava.lang.Object;@1710808

Implementation of array in Scala is quite interesting, for detail see http://www.drmaciver.com/2008/06/scala-arrays/

def g(x: Any*) =
x.asInstanceOf[scala.runtime.BoxedObjectArray].unbox(x.getClass).asInstanceOf[Array[Object]]

(which by the way works)

def a(b:A*)

You will get b as an instance of type Array[A]

For testing purpose, you can check this in scala console.

(which I need for a test project, not the case of the post)

Although Scala does not support varargs, but it has a similar concept called “repeated parameters”