Kotlin Constructors & Init Block

Every object has 2 things - Properties and Methods. To initialize properties with the default values, constructors are used. Once the object is created, properties are initialized using the constructor. Let's understand this with an example - 

  fun main() {
      var car = Automobile("Car", 4, 4)   
      var auto = Automobile("Auto", 3, 3)
  }

  class Automobile(val name: String, val tyres: Int, val maxSeating: Int)
  {
      fun drive() {}
      fun applyBrakes() {}
  }
  

Explanation - 

• Here we have defined a class named Automobile. It has 3 properties - name, tyres, and max seating. This portion of the class definition (val name: String, val tyres: Int, val maxSeating: Int) is known as Constructor.

• In the main method, we have created 2 instances of this Automobile class and passed the required values for properties. For car instance, we have passed, name as Car, tyres and max seating as 4. 

• Values we have passed are used to initialize the properties of the Car Object. Similarly, for the Auto instance, we have passed different values.

• A constructor is considered as a special method that gets called when the object is created. It is used to initialize properties and execute some initialization logic. 

Kotlin has 2 types of Constructors

• In Kotlin, there are 2 types of constructors, Primary constructor, and Secondary Constructor. In the above code snippet, we have defined the primary constructor. 

• Primary constructors defined above cannot contain any code. If you want to execute any code during the initialization, we have to define an init block.

  class Automobile(val name: String, val tyres: Int, val maxSeating: Int)
  {
      init {
          println("Init Block 1")
      }
    
      fun drive() {}
    
      init {
          println("Init Block 2")
      }
    
      fun applyBrakes() {}
  }
  

• This is how we define init block in Kotlin class. Any initialization code, you want to execute can be written inside these init blocks. You can define multiple init blocks inside a class and they are executed in the sequence defined in the class.

• Primary constructor can be defined using different variations as well - 

• You can leave the primary constructor empty and define properties inside a class 

• You can pass parameters just like a method and use these parameters to assign initial values to the properties.

  // Properties are defined inside class
  class Automobile()
  {
      val name: String = ""
      val tyres : Int = 0
  }

  // Parameters are passed to initialize properties inside class
  class Automobile(nameParam: String, tyresParam: Int)
  {
      val name: String = nameParam
      val tyres: Int = tyresParam
  }

• Defining constructor this way provides you a way to do some manipulation while assigning the values. For example, if you have a User class that has email property, you can convert that to lowercase or you can check if the user is an adult by putting a condition of age > 18.

• This is how you can define a Primary Constructor in Kotlin.

Secondary Constructor In Kotlin

• When you want to provide different ways of creating an object - you can define a secondary constructor. There are scenarios where you want to have different ways of initializing an object - you define multiple constructors in a class.

• Let's for an Automobile, general car objects have 4 tyres and 4 max seating capacity. You can define a secondary constructor where you don't need to pass these values every time you create a Car instance from the Automobile class.

• Important Note - If you define a secondary constructor then you have to call the primary constructor no matter what using this keyword. Refer below code snippet - 

  fun main() {
      var car = Automobile("Car", 4, 4)   
      var car2 = Automobile("Car2")       
  }

  class Automobile(val name: String, val tyres: Int, val maxSeating: Int)
  {
      constructor(nameParam: String): this(nameParam, 4, 4)
  }
    

Explanation - 

• Here secondary constructor is added to the Automobile class using the constructor keyword

• The secondary constructor calls the primary constructor and passes all the required values using this keyword.

• In the main method, we have created objects using both constructors. For the Car2 instance, we don't need to pass other values. We just passed the name parameter.

That's it for this article. For more articles on Kotlin Tutorials For Beginner Series - refer to this.

Happy Learning !! Cheers From CheezyCode.

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