Kotlin's late-initialized properties are a great way to initialize properties lazily and safely. In this post, we'll take a look at how to use late-initialized properties to our advantage.
Late-initialized properties are properties that are not initialized during the object's construction. Instead, they are initialized during the first access to the property. This is useful for properties that are expensive to initialize or that are not used often.
To use a late-initialized property, we first need to declare it with the lateinit
keyword:
lateinit var property: Type
We can then initialize the property when we first access it:
property = value
There are two main advantages to using late-initialized properties: performance and safety.
Late-initialized properties can improve performance because they are not initialized until they are first accessed. This means that we can avoid initializing properties that are not used often.
Late-initialized properties are also safe to use. This is because they are not initialized until they are first accessed. This means that we can avoid using properties that have not been initialized yet.
There are two main disadvantages to using late-initialized properties: readability and debugging.
Late-initialized properties can be more difficult to read because they are not initialized until they are first accessed. This means that we need to be careful to initialize the properties before we use them.
Late-initialized properties can also be more difficult to debug because they are not initialized until they are first accessed. This means that we need to be careful to initialize the properties before we use them.