12.11 Late Initialization (lateinit)
As previously outlined, non-null types need to be initialized when they are declared. This can be inconvenient if the value to be assigned to the non-null variable will not be known until later in the code execution. One way around this is to declare the variable using the lateinit modifier. This modifier designates that a value will be initialized with a value later. This has the advantage that a non-null type can be declared before it is initialized, with the disadvantage that the programmer is responsible for ensuring that the initialization has been performed before attempting to access the variable. Consider the following variable declaration:
var myName: String
Clearly, this is invalid since the variable is a non-null type but has not been assigned a value. Suppose, however, that the value to be assigned to the variable will not be known until later in the program execution. In this case, the lateinit modifier can be used as follows...