Scala list to tuple conversion def toPairs[A](xs : Seq[A]) : Seq[Tuple2[A,A]] = {
      @tailrec
      def accumulator(as : Seq[A], accum: Seq[Tuple2[A,A]]) : Seq[Tuple2[A,A]] = as match {
        case Nil =&gt; accum
        case x :: tail =&gt; tail match {
          case Nil =&gt; accum
          case _ =&gt;  accumulator(as.tail, accum :+ (x,tail.head))
        }
      }

      accumulator(xs, Seq.empty[Tuple2[A,A]])
    }


I use this code for the following use case: for a Seq[A] i.e. List(1,2,3) I want a Seq of Tuples of A i.e. List((1,2)(2,3)). Is this the most optimal, idiomatic way in Scala, what could be improved?

For the record: the order of the elements is important and is expected to be congruent with the example in the preceding paragraph.
I find the way you go back and forth between as and x a bit annoying.  You should be able to collapse the nested match into one match that covers three cases.

The :+ operator, which appends an element to a sequence, should be avoided at all costs, because it involves traversing to the end of the sequence.  That makes your algorithm O(n2), when it should ideally be O(n).

Anyway, the solution can be much simpler than that.

def toPairs[A](xs: Seq[A]): Seq[(A,A)] = xs.zip(xs.tail)