Book Image

Learn Kotlin Programming - Second Edition

By : Stephen Samuel, Stefan Bocutiu
Book Image

Learn Kotlin Programming - Second Edition

By: Stephen Samuel, Stefan Bocutiu

Overview of this book

Kotlin is a general-purpose programming language used for developing cross-platform applications. Complete with a comprehensive introduction and projects covering the full set of Kotlin programming features, this book will take you through the fundamentals of Kotlin and get you up to speed in no time. Learn Kotlin Programming covers the installation, tools, and how to write basic programs in Kotlin. You'll learn how to implement object-oriented programming in Kotlin and easily reuse your program or parts of it. The book explains DSL construction, serialization, null safety aspects, and type parameterization to help you build robust apps. You'll learn how to destructure expressions and write your own. You'll then get to grips with building scalable apps by exploring advanced topics such as testing, concurrency, microservices, coroutines, and Kotlin DSL builders. Furthermore, you'll be introduced to the kotlinx.serialization framework, which is used to persist objects in JSON, Protobuf, and other formats. By the end of this book, you'll be well versed with all the new features in Kotlin and will be able to build robust applications skillfully.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Fundamental Concepts in Kotlin
5
Section 2: Practical Concepts in Kotlin
15
Section 3: Advanced Concepts in Kotlin

Code contracts

As smart as compilers are these days, there are scenarios that don't have enough context and yield compilation errors. However, those errors cannot possibly occur here. You might have come across functions similar, at least logically, to the following one:

data class Command(val timestamp:Long)

fun processCommand(command:Command?){
validate(command)
println(command.timestamp)
}

fun validate(command:Command?){
if(command == null) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid 'command' parameter. Expecting non-null parameter")
}

//... more validation here
}

If you were to compile this code as it is, the compiler will return an error at println(command.type). It will say—Only safe (?.) or non-null asserted (!!.) calls are allowed on a nullable receiver of type Command?. Given the earlier validate method, we know the error can never...