Function that returns a human readable string that describes the type of its argument

demo.txt

scala> import TypeString._
import TypeString._

scala> typeString[Int]
res1: String = Int

scala> typeString(2)
res2: String = Int

scala> typeString[String => Int]
res3: String = (String)=>Int

scala> typeString((x:String)=>x.toInt)
res4: String = (String)=>Int

typeString.scala

import scala.reflect.runtime.universe._

object TypeString {

  // return a human-readable type string for type argument 'T'
  // typeString[Int] returns "Int"
  def typeString[T :TypeTag]: String = {
    def work(t: Type): String = {
      t match { case TypeRef(pre, sym, args) =>
        val ss = sym.toString.stripPrefix("trait ").stripPrefix("class ").stripPrefix("type ")
        val as = args.map(work)
        if (ss.startsWith("Function")) {
          val arity = args.length - 1
          "(" + (as.take(arity).mkString(",")) + ")" + "=>" + as.drop(arity).head
        } else {
          if (args.length <= 0) ss else (ss + "[" + as.mkString(",") + "]")
        }
      }
    }
    work(typeOf[T])
  }

  // get the type string of an argument:
  // typeString(2) returns "Int"
  def typeString[T :TypeTag](x: T): String = typeString[T]
}