Kotlin Help

What's new in Kotlin 1.2

Released: 28 November 2017

Table of contents

Multiplatform projects (experimental)

Multiplatform projects are a new experimental feature in Kotlin 1.2, allowing you to reuse code between target platforms supported by Kotlin – JVM, JavaScript, and (in the future) Native. In a multiplatform project, you have three kinds of modules:

  • A common module contains code that is not specific to any platform, as well as declarations without implementation of platform-dependent APIs.

  • A platform module contains implementations of platform-dependent declarations in the common module for a specific platform, as well as other platform-dependent code.

  • A regular module targets a specific platform and can either be a dependency of platform modules or depend on platform modules.

When you compile a multiplatform project for a specific platform, the code for both the common and platform-specific parts is generated.

A key feature of the multiplatform project support is the possibility to express dependencies of common code on platform-specific parts through expected and actual declarations. An expected declaration specifies an API (class, interface, annotation, top-level declaration etc.). An actual declaration is either a platform-dependent implementation of the API or a type alias referring to an existing implementation of the API in an external library. Here's an example:

In the common code:

// expected platform-specific API: expect fun hello(world: String): String fun greet() { // usage of the expected API: val greeting = hello("multiplatform world") println(greeting) } expect class URL(spec: String) { open fun getHost(): String open fun getPath(): String }

In the JVM platform code:

actual fun hello(world: String): String = "Hello, $world, on the JVM platform!" // using existing platform-specific implementation: actual typealias URL = java.net.URL

See the multiplatform programming documentation for details and steps to build a multiplatform project.

Other language features

Array literals in annotations

Starting with Kotlin 1.2, array arguments for annotations can be passed with the new array literal syntax instead of the arrayOf function:

@CacheConfig(cacheNames = ["books", "default"]) public class BookRepositoryImpl { // ... }

The array literal syntax is constrained to annotation arguments.

Lateinit top-level properties and local variables

The lateinit modifier can now be used on top-level properties and local variables. The latter can be used, for example, when a lambda passed as a constructor argument to one object refers to another object which has to be defined later:

class Node<T>(val value: T, val next: () -> Node<T>) fun main(args: Array<String>) { // A cycle of three nodes: lateinit var third: Node<Int> val second = Node(2, next = { third }) val first = Node(1, next = { second }) third = Node(3, next = { first }) val nodes = generateSequence(first) { it.next() } println("Values in the cycle: ${nodes.take(7).joinToString { it.value.toString() }}, ...") }

Check whether a lateinit var is initialized

You can now check whether a lateinit var has been initialized using isInitialized on the property reference:

class Foo { lateinit var lateinitVar: String fun initializationLogic() { //sampleStart println("isInitialized before assignment: " + this::lateinitVar.isInitialized) lateinitVar = "value" println("isInitialized after assignment: " + this::lateinitVar.isInitialized) //sampleEnd } } fun main(args: Array<String>) { Foo().initializationLogic() }

Inline functions with default functional parameters

Inline functions are now allowed to have default values for their inlined functional parameters:

//sampleStart inline fun <E> Iterable<E>.strings(transform: (E) -> String = { it.toString() }) = map { transform(it) } val defaultStrings = listOf(1, 2, 3).strings() val customStrings = listOf(1, 2, 3).strings { "($it)" } //sampleEnd fun main(args: Array<String>) { println("defaultStrings = $defaultStrings") println("customStrings = $customStrings") }

Information from explicit casts is used for type inference

The Kotlin compiler can now use information from type casts in type inference. If you're calling a generic method that returns a type parameter T and casting the return value to a specific type Foo, the compiler now understands that T for this call needs to be bound to the type Foo.

This is particularly important for Android developers, since the compiler can now correctly analyze generic findViewById calls in Android API level 26:

val button = findViewById(R.id.button) as Button

Smart cast improvements

When a variable is assigned from a safe call expression and checked for null, the smart cast is now applied to the safe call receiver as well:

fun countFirst(s: Any): Int { //sampleStart val firstChar = (s as? CharSequence)?.firstOrNull() if (firstChar != null) return s.count { it == firstChar } // s: Any is smart cast to CharSequence val firstItem = (s as? Iterable<*>)?.firstOrNull() if (firstItem != null) return s.count { it == firstItem } // s: Any is smart cast to Iterable<*> //sampleEnd return -1 } fun main(args: Array<String>) { val string = "abacaba" val countInString = countFirst(string) println("called on \"$string\": $countInString") val list = listOf(1, 2, 3, 1, 2) val countInList = countFirst(list) println("called on $list: $countInList") }

Also, smart casts in a lambda are now allowed for local variables that are only modified before the lambda:

fun main(args: Array<String>) { //sampleStart val flag = args.size == 0 var x: String? = null if (flag) x = "Yahoo!" run { if (x != null) { println(x.length) // x is smart cast to String } } //sampleEnd }

Support for ::foo as a shorthand for this::foo

A bound callable reference to a member of this can now be written without explicit receiver, ::foo instead of this::foo. This also makes callable references more convenient to use in lambdas where you refer to a member of the outer receiver.

Breaking change: sound smart casts after try blocks

Earlier, Kotlin used assignments made inside a try block for smart casts after the block, which could break type- and null-safety and lead to runtime failures. This release fixes this issue, making the smart casts more strict, but breaking some code that relied on such smart casts.

To switch to the old smart casts behavior, pass the fallback flag -Xlegacy-smart-cast-after-try as the compiler argument. It will become deprecated in Kotlin 1.3.

Deprecation: data classes overriding copy

When a data class derived from a type that already had the copy function with the same signature, the copy implementation generated for the data class used the defaults from the supertype, leading to counter-intuitive behavior, or failed at runtime if there were no default parameters in the supertype.

Inheritance that leads to a copy conflict has become deprecated with a warning in Kotlin 1.2 and will be an error in Kotlin 1.3.

Deprecation: nested types in enum entries

Inside enum entries, defining a nested type that is not an inner class has been deprecated due to issues in the initialization logic. This causes a warning in Kotlin 1.2 and will become an error in Kotlin 1.3.

Deprecation: single named argument for vararg

For consistency with array literals in annotations, passing a single item for a vararg parameter in the named form (foo(items = i)) has been deprecated. Please use the spread operator with the corresponding array factory functions:

foo(items = *arrayOf(1))

There is an optimization that removes redundant arrays creation in such cases, which prevents performance degradation. The single-argument form produces warnings in Kotlin 1.2 and is to be dropped in Kotlin 1.3.

Deprecation: inner classes of generic classes extending Throwable

Inner classes of generic types that inherit from Throwable could violate type-safety in a throw-catch scenario and thus have been deprecated, with a warning in Kotlin 1.2 and an error in Kotlin 1.3.

Deprecation: mutating backing field of a read-only property

Mutating the backing field of a read-only property by assigning field = ... in the custom getter has been deprecated, with a warning in Kotlin 1.2 and an error in Kotlin 1.3.

Standard library

Kotlin standard library artifacts and split packages

The Kotlin standard library is now fully compatible with the Java 9 module system, which forbids split packages (multiple jar files declaring classes in the same package). In order to support that, new artifacts kotlin-stdlib-jdk7 and kotlin-stdlib-jdk8 are introduced, which replace the old kotlin-stdlib-jre7 and kotlin-stdlib-jre8.

The declarations in the new artifacts are visible under the same package names from the Kotlin point of view, but have different package names for Java. Therefore, switching to the new artifacts will not require any changes to your source code.

Another change made to ensure compatibility with the new module system is removing the deprecated declarations in the kotlin.reflect package from the kotlin-reflect library. If you were using them, you need to switch to using the declarations in the kotlin.reflect.full package, which is supported since Kotlin 1.1.

windowed, chunked, zipWithNext

New extensions for Iterable<T>, Sequence<T>, and CharSequence cover such use cases as buffering or batch processing (chunked), sliding window and computing sliding average (windowed) , and processing pairs of subsequent items (zipWithNext):

fun main(args: Array<String>) { //sampleStart val items = (1..9).map { it * it } val chunkedIntoLists = items.chunked(4) val points3d = items.chunked(3) { (x, y, z) -> Triple(x, y, z) } val windowed = items.windowed(4) val slidingAverage = items.windowed(4) { it.average() } val pairwiseDifferences = items.zipWithNext { a, b -> b - a } //sampleEnd println("items: $items\n") println("chunked into lists: $chunkedIntoLists") println("3D points: $points3d") println("windowed by 4: $windowed") println("sliding average by 4: $slidingAverage") println("pairwise differences: $pairwiseDifferences") }

fill, replaceAll, shuffle/shuffled

A set of extension functions was added for manipulating lists: fill, replaceAll and shuffle for MutableList, and shuffled for read-only List:

fun main(args: Array<String>) { //sampleStart val items = (1..5).toMutableList() items.shuffle() println("Shuffled items: $items") items.replaceAll { it * 2 } println("Items doubled: $items") items.fill(5) println("Items filled with 5: $items") //sampleEnd }

Math operations in kotlin-stdlib

Satisfying the longstanding request, Kotlin 1.2 adds the kotlin.math API for math operations that is common for JVM and JS and contains the following:

  • Constants: PI and E

  • Trigonometric: cos, sin, tan and inverse of them: acos, asin, atan, atan2

  • Hyperbolic: cosh, sinh, tanh and their inverse: acosh, asinh, atanh

  • Exponentation: pow (an extension function), sqrt, hypot, exp, expm1

  • Logarithms: log, log2, log10, ln, ln1p

  • Rounding:

    • ceil, floor, truncate, round (half to even) functions

    • roundToInt, roundToLong (half to integer) extension functions

  • Sign and absolute value:

    • abs and sign functions

    • absoluteValue and sign extension properties

    • withSign extension function

  • max and min of two values

  • Binary representation:

    • ulp extension property

    • nextUp, nextDown, nextTowards extension functions

    • toBits, toRawBits, Double.fromBits (these are in the kotlin package)

The same set of functions (but without constants) is also available for Float arguments.

Operators and conversions for BigInteger and BigDecimal

Kotlin 1.2 introduces a set of functions for operating with BigInteger and BigDecimal and creating them from other numeric types. These are:

  • toBigInteger for Int and Long

  • toBigDecimal for Int, Long, Float, Double, and BigInteger

  • Arithmetic and bitwise operator functions:

    • Binary operators +, -, *, /, % and infix functions and, or, xor, shl, shr

    • Unary operators -, ++, --, and a function inv

Floating point to bits conversions

New functions were added for converting Double and Float to and from their bit representations:

  • toBits and toRawBits returning Long for Double and Int for Float

  • Double.fromBits and Float.fromBits for creating floating point numbers from the bit representation

Regex is now serializable

The kotlin.text.Regex class has become Serializable and can now be used in serializable hierarchies.

Closeable.use calls Throwable.addSuppressed if available

The Closeable.use function calls Throwable.addSuppressed when an exception is thrown during closing the resource after some other exception.

To enable this behavior you need to have kotlin-stdlib-jdk7 in your dependencies.

JVM backend

Constructor calls normalization

Ever since version 1.0, Kotlin supported expressions with complex control flow, such as try-catch expressions and inline function calls. Such code is valid according to the Java Virtual Machine specification. Unfortunately, some bytecode processing tools do not handle such code quite well when such expressions are present in the arguments of constructor calls.

To mitigate this problem for the users of such bytecode processing tools, we've added a command-line compiler option (-Xnormalize-constructor-calls=MODE) that tells the compiler to generate more Java-like bytecode for such constructs. Here MODE is one of:

  • disable (default) – generate bytecode in the same way as in Kotlin 1.0 and 1.1.

  • enable – generate Java-like bytecode for constructor calls. This can change the order in which the classes are loaded and initialized.

  • preserve-class-initialization – generate Java-like bytecode for constructor calls, ensuring that the class initialization order is preserved. This can affect overall performance of your application; use it only if you have some complex state shared between multiple classes and updated on class initialization.

The "manual" workaround is to store the values of sub-expressions with control flow in variables, instead of evaluating them directly inside the call arguments. It's similar to -Xnormalize-constructor-calls=enable.

Java-default method calls

Before Kotlin 1.2, interface members overriding Java-default methods while targeting JVM 1.6 produced a warning on super calls: Super calls to Java default methods are deprecated in JVM target 1.6. Recompile with '-jvm-target 1.8'. In Kotlin 1.2, there's an error instead, thus requiring any such code to be compiled with JVM target 1.8.

Breaking change: consistent behavior of x.equals(null) for platform types

Calling x.equals(null) on a platform type that is mapped to a Java primitive (Int!, Boolean!, Short!, Long!, Float!, Double!, Char!) incorrectly returned true when x was null. Starting with Kotlin 1.2, calling x.equals(...) on a null value of a platform type throws an NPE (but x == ... does not).

To return to the pre-1.2 behavior, pass the flag -Xno-exception-on-explicit-equals-for-boxed-null to the compiler.

Breaking change: fix for platform null escaping through an inlined extension receiver

Inline extension functions that were called on a null value of a platform type did not check the receiver for null and would thus allow null to escape into the other code. Kotlin 1.2 forces this check at the call sites, throwing an exception if the receiver is null.

To switch to the old behavior, pass the fallback flag -Xno-receiver-assertions to the compiler.

JavaScript backend

TypedArrays support enabled by default

The JS typed arrays support that translates Kotlin primitive arrays, such as IntArray, DoubleArray, into JavaScript typed arrays, that was previously an opt-in feature, has been enabled by default.

Tools

Warnings as errors

The compiler now provides an option to treat all warnings as errors. Use -Werror on the command line, or the following Gradle snippet:

compileKotlin { kotlinOptions.allWarningsAsErrors = true }
Last modified: 25 May 2023
What's new in Kotlin 1.3 What's new in Kotlin 1.1