Pattern Match On Empty Maps

Questions & Help Questions
1

I’m really confused why the an empty map pattern matches with a random other map

%{} = %{foo: :bar}

but now when set to a variable

empty_map = %{}
^empty_map = %{foo: :bar}
** (MatchError) no match of right hand side value: %{foo: :bar}
    (stdlib) erl_eval.erl:453: :erl_eval.expr/5
    (iex) lib/iex/evaluator.ex:257: IEx.Evaluator.handle_eval/5
    (iex) lib/iex/evaluator.ex:237: IEx.Evaluator.do_eval/3
    (iex) lib/iex/evaluator.ex:215: IEx.Evaluator.eval/3
    (iex) lib/iex/evaluator.ex:103: IEx.Evaluator.loop/1
    (iex) lib/iex/evaluator.ex:27: IEx.Evaluator.init/4

Reproducible on Mac OSX with the following Elixir/Erlang

Erlang/OTP 22 [erts-10.7.2.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:8:8] [ds:8:8:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe]

Interactive Elixir (1.9.4) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help)