ambiguous_set_or_map_literal_either

This literal must be either a map or a set, but the elements don't have enough information for type inference to work.

Because map and set literals use the same delimiters ({ and }), the analyzer looks at the type arguments and the elements to determine which kind of literal you meant. When there are no type arguments and all of the elements are spread elements (which are allowed in both kinds of literals) then the analyzer uses the types of the expressions that are being spread. If all of the expressions have the type Iterable, then it's a set literal; if they all have the type Map, then it's a map literal.

This diagnostic is produced when none of the expressions being spread have a type that allows the analyzer to decide whether you were writing a map literal or a set literal.

The following code produces this diagnostic:

union(a, b) => {...a, ...b};

The problem occurs because there are no type arguments, and there is no information about the type of either a or b.

There are three common ways to fix this problem. The first is to add type arguments to the literal. For example, if the literal is intended to be a map literal, you might write something like this:

union(a, b) => <String, String>{...a, ...b};

The second fix is to add type information so that the expressions have either the type Iterable or the type Map. You can add an explicit cast or, in this case, add types to the declarations of the two parameters:

union(List<int> a, List<int> b) => {...a, ...b};

The third fix is to add context information. In this case, that means adding a return type to the function:

Set<String> union(a, b) => {...a, ...b};

In other cases, you might add a type somewhere else. For example, say the original code looks like this:

union(a, b) {
  var x = {...a, ...b};
  return x;
}

You might add a type annotation on x, like this:

union(a, b) {
  Map<String, String> x = {...a, ...b};
  return x;
}

Unless stated otherwise, the documentation on this site reflects Dart 3.8.1. Page last updated on 2025-05-08. View source or report an issue.