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Collections

Arrays in Kotlin have a constant length, so one normally uses lists, which are similar to the ones in Python. What's called a dict in Python is called a map in Kotlin (not to be confused with the function map()). List, Map, and Set are all interfaces which are implemented by many different classes. In most situations, a standard array-backed list or hash-based map or set will do, and you can easily make those like this:

val strings = listOf("Anne", "Karen", "Peter") // List<String>
val map = mapOf("a" to 1, "b" to 2, "c" to 3)  // Map<String, Int>
val set = setOf("a", "b", "c")                 // Set<String>

(Note that to is an infix function that creates a Pair containing a key and a value, from which the map is constructed.) The resulting collections are immutable - you can neither change their size nor replace their elements - however, the elements themselves may still be mutable objects. For mutable collections, do this:

val strings = mutableListOf("Anne", "Karen", "Peter")
val map = mutableMapOf("a" to 1, "b" to 2, "c" to 3)
val set = mutableSetOf("a", "b", "c")

You can get the size/length of a collection c with c.size (except for string objects, where you for legacy Java reasons must use s.length instead).

Unfortunately, if you want an empty collection, you need to either declare the resulting collection type explicitly, or supply the element type(s) to the function that constructs the collection:

val noInts: List<Int> = listOf()
val noStrings = listOf<String>()
val emptyMap = mapOf<String, Int>()

The types inside the angle brackets are called generic type parameters, which we will cover later. In short, it's a useful technique to make a class that is tied to another class (such as a container class, which is tied to its element class) applicable to many different classes.

If you really really need a mixed-type collection, you can use the element type Any - but you'll need typecasting to get the elements back to their proper type again, so if what you want is a multiple-value return from a function, please use the per-element-typed Pair or Triple instead. If you need four or more elements, consider making a data class for the return type instead (which you should ideally do for two or three elements as well, especially if it's a public function, since it gives you proper names for the elements) - it's very easy and usually a oneliner.


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This material was written by Aasmund Eldhuset; it is owned by Khan Academy and is licensed for use under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US. Please note that this is not a part of Khan Academy's official product offering.

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Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
https://kotlinlang.org/docs/tutorials/kotlin-for-py/collections.html