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Android Development with Kotlin

You're reading from   Android Development with Kotlin Enhance your skills for Android development using Kotlin

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Product type Paperback
Published in Aug 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781787123687
Length 440 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Authors (2):
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Marcin Moskala Marcin Moskala
Author Profile Icon Marcin Moskala
Marcin Moskala
Igor Wojda Igor Wojda
Author Profile Icon Igor Wojda
Igor Wojda
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Table of Contents (10) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Beginning Your Kotlin Adventure FREE CHAPTER 2. Laying a Foundation 3. Playing with Functions 4. Classes and Objects 5. Functions as First-Class Citizens 6. Generics Are Your Friends 7. Extension Functions and Properties 8. Delegates 9. Making Your Marvel Gallery Application

Primitive data types


In Kotlin, everything is an object (reference type, not primitive type). We don't find primitive types, like the ones we can use in Java. This reduces code complexity. We can call methods and properties on any variable. For example, this is how we can convert the Int variable to a Char:

    var code: Int = 75 
    code.toChar() 

Usually (whenever it is possible), under the hood types such as Int, Long, or Char are optimized (stored as primitive types) but we can still call methods on them as on any other objects.

By default, the Java platform stores numbers as JVM primitive types, but when a nullable number reference (for example, Int?), is needed or generics are involved, Java uses boxed representation. Boxing means wrapping a primitive type into a corresponding boxed primitive type. This means that the instance behaves as an object. Examples of Java boxed representations of primitive types are int versus Integer or a long versus Long Since Kotlin is compiled to JVM bytecode...

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