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Programming Kotlin

You're reading from   Programming Kotlin Get to grips quickly with the best Java alternative

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jan 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781787126367
Length 420 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
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Authors (2):
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Stefan Bocutiu Stefan Bocutiu
Author Profile Icon Stefan Bocutiu
Stefan Bocutiu
Stephen Samuel Stephen Samuel
Author Profile Icon Stephen Samuel
Stephen Samuel
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Toc

Table of Contents (14) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Getting Started with Kotlin FREE CHAPTER 2. Kotlin Basics 3. Object-Oriented Programming in Kotlin 4. Functions in Kotlin 5. Higher Order Functions and Functional Programming 6. Properties 7. Null Safety, Reflection, and Annotations 8. Generics 9. Data Classes 10. Collections 11. Testing in Kotlin 12. Microservices with Kotlin 13. Concurrency

Elvis operator


One of the most common scenarios when we have a nullable type is to use the value if it is not null, and a default if otherwise. For example, in Java we might usually write code like this:

    String postcode = null 
    if (address == null) { 
      postcode = "No Postcode" 
    } 
    else { 
      if (address.getPostcode() == null) { 
        postcode = "No Postcode" 
      } 
      else { 
        postcode = address.getPostcode() 
      } 
    }

What Kotlin offers us as a replacement is the so-called Elvis operator ?:. Supposedly, if you turn your head sideways the operator looks like Elvis' hairstyle, but perhaps it would have been better with a different name. The usage of this is very similar to the ternary if statement in Java.

This infix operator can be placed in between a nullable expression and an expression to use if the nullable expression is indeed null. So the general usage resembles the following:

    val nullableName...
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