I saw this Scala syntax and I'm don't understand what it means:
val a: HashMap[String, String] = HashMap(b map {s => (s(0), s(1))} : _*)
I understand that it takes a list of pairs and converts it to a hashmap keyed by the first element of each pair, and the value is the second element of the pair. However, I don't understand how this syntax implies that, and what the _* means.