I see Kotlin has a List<out E>
collection and I was wondering about different ways to initialize one. In Java, I could write:
List<String> geeks = Arrays.asList("Fowler", "Beck", "Evans");
How can I achieve the same in Kotlin?
I see Kotlin has a List<out E>
collection and I was wondering about different ways to initialize one. In Java, I could write:
List<String> geeks = Arrays.asList("Fowler", "Beck", "Evans");
How can I achieve the same in Kotlin?
listOf
top-level function to the rescue:
val geeks = listOf("Fowler", "Beck", "Evans")
Just for adding more info, Kotlin offers both immutable List
and MutableList
that can be initialized with listOf
and mutableListOf
. If you're more interested in what Kotlin offers regarding Collections, you can go to the official reference docs at Collections.
Both the upvoted answers by Ilya and gmariotti are good and correct. Some alternatives are however spread out in comments, and some are not mentioned at all.
This answer includes a summary of the already given ones, along with clarifications and a couple of other alternatives.
List
)Immutable, or read-only lists, are lists which cannot have elements added or removed.
listOf()
often does what you want. This creates an immutable list, similar to Arrays.asList
in Java.emptyList()
does the same, but naturally returns an empty list.listOfNotNull()
returns an immutable list excluding all null
elements.MutableList
)Mutable lists can have elements added or removed.
mutableListOf()
, which typically is what you want when you need to add or remove elements from the list.arrayListOf()
. This creates a mutable ArrayList
. In case you really want an ArrayList
implementation, use this over mutableListOf()
.List
implementations, which have not got any convenience functions, they can be initialized as, for example, val list = LinkedList<String>()
. That is simply create the object by calling its constructor. Use this only if you really want, for example, a LinkedList
implementation.Let me explain some use-cases : let's create an immutable(non changeable) list with initializing items :
val myList = listOf("one" , "two" , "three")
let's create a Mutable (changeable) list with initializing fields :
val myList = mutableListOf("one" , "two" , "three")
Let's declare an immutable(non changeable) and then instantiate it :
lateinit var myList : List<String>
// and then in the code :
myList = listOf("one" , "two" , "three")
And finally add some extra items to each :
val myList = listOf("one" , "two" , "three")
myList.add() //Unresolved reference : add, no add method here as it is non mutable
val myMutableList = mutableListOf("one" , "two" , "three")
myMutableList.add("four") // it's ok
In this way, you can initialize the List in Kotlin
val alphabates : List<String> = listOf("a", "b", "c")