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Last updated: Thursday 21 August 2025 @ 06:13:26

Lab 1: Introduction to Kotlin

Info

1. Getting Started

  1. Once opened you will be greeted with the landing page:

  2. Select New Project

    • Modify the Name to HelloWorld

    • Change Language to Kotlin

    • Uncheck Add sample code

    • Click Create

  3. Once loaded (can take a few minutes) you will see the following project structure:

  1. Adding a Kotlin Class file

    • Right-click the highlighted Kotlin folder in the previous image
    • Once the context menu opens click 'New' and then Kotlin Class/file

  2. Create a new File file called Main

  1. Now we can populate our new Main.kt file with some code.

    Info

    .kt is the extension for Kotlin files

  2. Write the following:

    Code

    fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    
    println("Hello World!")

}

    Explanation of code

    • fun is a hard keyword that tells the Kotlin you are declaring a function.

    • main() is the function name, and any console-based program like this, main(), is the entry point of the program when it is executed by the OS.

    • (args: Array<String>), is the way of telling the program that it can take in arguments supplied to it, in this instance args, the variable, will be an Array of strings`

    • Everything between the {} braces is executed by the program.

    • Lastly, println("Hello World!"), calls the function println() which prints whatever is in the brackets to the terminal with a \n new line at the end hence in the ln in println.

  3. Now you can run the program using either of the green arrows:

  4. You should see a terminal appear at the bottom of the IDE that shows some output.

    center

  5. Now you are going to modify the programme so that printl() takes a variable

  • Create a mutable variable called name

    Code

    fun main(args: Array<String>) {
  
  var name : String = "Your Name"

  println("Hello World! " + name)

}
  1. Run and you should see the following output

center

  1. Notice the green under-wave underneath the println("Hello World! " + name)

center

Info

You can find more if you go to File>Settings>Editor>Color Scheme > General > Errors and Warnings

  • Green = typo, literals, weak warnings
  • Red = Error (will not compile)

  1. This underwave can be corrected two ways, either hover over and follow the quick key shortcut 'Alt+Shift+Enter'. Or Manually fix it by reproducing the output below.

    center

  2. You will see the that println("Hello World! " + name) has been refactored to:

    center

Info

  • String literals may contain template expressions – pieces of code that are evaluated and whose results are concatenated into the string.

  • A template expression starts with a dollar sign $ and consists of either a name

  • or an expression in curly braces:

Code

val s = "Hello World"
println("$s.length is ${s.length}") // Prints "Hello World.length is 11"

  1. Run the program again, do you get the same output?

  2. Modify further with print() function

center

Info

  • print() by default does not terminate with a new line (\n) line character, unlike println()

  • however, you can tell it to, by adding a \n to the end of the message inbetweent the two brackets.

  1. Run it and see for yourself, then remove the \n from the end of print("Hello me\n), is it the same?

2 Mutable and immutable

  1. var is a general variable and it's known as a mutable variable in Kotlin and can be assigned multiple times.

  2. val is a final variable and it's known as immutable in Kotlin and can be initialised only a single time.

    Info

    • The term mutable comes from mutation, as is to mutate, to change. In computing this means Read & Write

    • Therefore immutable is something that can not mutate nor change. In comupting this means Read only

  3. Since you started we have been using var to define the variable name, this is technically incorrect, because we never change the value after declaration.

  4. Let's change this to val to make our code more clean.

  5. Reproduce the following:

    Code

    fun main(args: Array<String>) {

   val a: Int = 4
   val b: Int = 4
   var c: Int = 0

   print("$c = $a + $b")

}

  6. Before running to code, predict what the outcome will be. Now run it, does it match your prediction?

    Answer

    0 = 4 + 4

    • This is because no mathematical operation is performed inside a String concatenation

  7. Modify the above code so that it looks like this:

    Code

    fun main(args: Array<String>) {

   val a: Int = 4
   val b: Int = 4
   var c: Int = 0

   c = a + b

   print("$c = $a + $b")i
}

  8. Before running to code, predict what the outcome will be. Now run it, does it match your prediction?

    Answer

    8 = 4 + 4

    • This is because the mathematical operation is performed outside a String concatenation, and the result of a + b is saved to c

  9. Now let's change how c is declared, modify c so that var is now val:

    Code

    val c: Int = 0

  10. Before running to code, predict what the outcome will be? Now run it, does it match your prediction?

    Answer
    • You can not, notice the red under-wave, this is an error, because c is immutable now.
    • it is important to read the Problems tab at the bottom of the IDE.
    • Change it back to var.
    • We are not going to worry about the warnings for now, will come back to that later.

3. Data types

  1. Remember from the lecture that data types are as follows:

  • Numbers (six built-in types)

    • Byte [ \(-127\) to \(128\) ]
    • Short [ \(-32768\) to \(32767\) ]
    • Int [ \(-2^{31}\) to \(2^{31}-1\) ]
    • Long [ \(-2^{63}\) to \(2^{63}-1\) ]
    • Float [ \(2^{32}\) ]
    • Double [ \(2^{64}\) ]

  • Characters

    • Chars [ \(2^{16}\) ]
      • because Unicode instead of just ASCII
      • \u0000,\uFFFF

  • Booleans

    • true
    • false
    • Although 1 bit (1,0), it is technically a Byte.

  • Arrays

    • get
    • set
    • size
    • length
    • etc...

  • Strings

    • A class, not technically a data type

  1. Let's check the maximum and minimum values available to you on your machine or VM

    • Start your program off as follows and run:

      Code

      fun main(args: Array<String>) {

   val b1: Byte = Byte.MIN_VALUE
   val b2: Byte = Byte.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest signed byte value: " +b1)
   println("Largest signed byte value: " +b2)

   val ub1: UByte = UByte.MIN_VALUE
   val ub2: UByte = UByte.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest unsigned byte value: " +ub1)
   println("Largest unsigned byte value: " +ub2)

   println("--------------------------------------------------")
}

      Output

    • Now repeat for each data type, remembering to include signed and unsigned variants:

      • Short, Char, Int, Long, Float and Double

        Info

        • Char will need to be cast as an Int

        • Float and Double can only be signed

        • eg. val someVal: dataTypeYouWant = originalDataType

        Whole code, do it yourself first... [66 lines]

         
        ```kt
fun main(args: Array<String>) {

   val b1: Byte = Byte.MIN_VALUE
   val b2: Byte = Byte.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest signed byte value: " +b1)
   println("Largest signed byte value: " +b2)

   val ub1: UByte = UByte.MIN_VALUE
   val ub2: UByte = UByte.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest unsigned byte value: " +ub1)
   println("Largest unsigned byte value: " +ub2)

   println("--------------------------------------------------")

   val s1: Short = Short.MIN_VALUE
   val s2: Short = Short.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest signed short value: " +s1)
   println("Largest signed short value: " +s2)

   val us1: UShort = UShort.MIN_VALUE
   val us2: UShort = UShort.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest unsigned short value: " +us1)
   println("Largest unsigned short value: " +us2)

   println("--------------------------------------------------")

   val c1: Int = Char.MIN_VALUE.code
   val c2: Int = Char.MAX_VALUE.code
   println("Smallest Char value: " + c1)
   println("Largest Char value: " + c2)

   println("--------------------------------------------------")

   val i1: Int = Int.MIN_VALUE
   val i2: Int = Int.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest signed integer value: " +i1)
   println("Largest signed integer value: " +i2)

   val ui1: UInt = UInt.MIN_VALUE
   val ui2: UInt = UInt.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest unsigned integer value: " +ui1)
   println("Largest unsigned integer value: " +ui2)

   println("--------------------------------------------------")

   val l1: Long = Long.MIN_VALUE
   val l2: Long = Long.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest signed long integer value: " +l1)
   println("Largest signed long integer value: " +l2)

   val ul1: ULong = ULong.MIN_VALUE
   val ul2: ULong = ULong.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest unsigned long integer value: " +ul1)
   println("Largest unsigned long integer value: " +ul2)

   println("--------------------------------------------------")

   val F1: Float = Float.MIN_VALUE
   val F2: Float = Float.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest Float value: " +F1)
   println("Largest Float value: " + F2)

   val D1: Double = Double.MIN_VALUE
   val D2: Double = Double.MAX_VALUE
   println("Smallest Double value: " + D1)
   println("Largest Double value: " + D2)
}
```

~~~
        - When done, you should get the same output as below:

        Output

         
        Smallest signed byte value: -128
Largest signed byte value: 127
Smallest unsigned byte value: 0
Largest unsigned byte value: 255
--------------------------------------------------
Smallest signed short value: -32768
Largest signed short value: 32767
Smallest unsigned short value: 0
Largest unsigned short value: 65535
--------------------------------------------------
Smallest Char value: 0
Largest Char value: 65535
--------------------------------------------------
Smallest signed integer value: -2147483648
Largest signed integer value: 2147483647
Smallest unsigned integer value: 0
Largest unsigned integer value: 4294967295
--------------------------------------------------
Smallest signed long integer value: -9223372036854775808
Largest signed long integer value: 9223372036854775807
Smallest unsigned long integer value: 0
Largest unsigned long integer value: 18446744073709551615
--------------------------------------------------
Smallest Float value: 1.4E-45
Largest Float value: 3.4028235E38
Smallest Double value: 4.9E-324
Largest Double value: 1.7976931348623157E308

Process finished with exit code 0

  2. Arrays

    Note

    • You can have an array of any data type
    • They are stored in contiguous memory locations.
    • They can be accessed programmatically through their indexes (array[1], array[0], etc.)
    • They are mutable (val).
    • Their size is fixed.

    Example

    • val num = arrayOf(1, 2, 3, 4) //implicit type declaration

    • val num = arrayOf<Int>(1, 2, 3) //explicit type declaration

    • val sentence = String: "This is a sentence." // Strings are an array of characters

    1. Reproduce the following to experiment with the various iterations of array manipulation:

      Code

      1 var sentence :String = "This is a sentence"
2 
3 for (i in 0 ..< sentence.length)
4 {
5   print(" "+sentence[i])
6 }

      Info

      • A reminder that a String is a sequence or an array of characters.

      • The for is a keyword that enables the iteration through anything that provides an iterator. Here the iterator is the i a variable that iterates through a supplied list, collection, enumerable, or objects.

      • After the opening bracket ( i the next keyword is in and is considered an operator, here in is to used to iterate over the length of sentence executing the print(..) method, until i is less than, <, the length.

      Output

      The output should look something like:

      T h i s  i s  a  s e n t e n e c e

      Notice the white spacing between each letter and the extra white space between the words.

    2. Another way to write the for loop:

      A slight difference here is that instead of iterating using an iterator with an integer to a specified length we iterate over all elements of the object or list. The use of the word element is not reserved, and you could replace this with anything that makes sense, as long as it is not another keyword:

      Code

      1 var sentence :String = "This is a sentence"
2 
3 for (element in sentence)
4 {
5   print(" "+ element)
6 }

      Code

      1 var sentence :String = "This is a sentence"
2 
3 for (characters in sentence)
4 {
5   print(" "+ characters)
6 }

      Run this code either way and you should still receive the same output as before:

      Output

      T h i s  i s  a  s e n t e n e c e

    3. An array can be defined, explicitly or implicitly by doing the following:

      Code

      // declaring an array using arrayOf<Int> this is explicit
val explicitArray = arrayOf<Int>(10, 20, 30, 40, 50)
val implicitArray = arrayOf(10, 20, 30, 40, 50)

    4. Another way to iterate over the array is to do the following:

      Code

      for (i in 0.rangeTo(explicitArray.size-1))
{
   print(" "+explicitArray[i])
}

      Question: Notice anything different than before?

      • 0.rangeTo(...)

      • This is technically an operator function, where the preceding number 0 can be any number less than the range provided in the arguments to the function.

      • explicitArray.size, where size is an attribute of the array, much like length was to sentence earlier. We minus 1 from the size because arrays are 0 indexed. Meaning that while there are 5 indices in the explicitArray it starts at at index 0 and goes to 4, which is a total of 5.

      • modify the code and run it again to see why we need to subtract 1.

        for (i in 0.rangeTo(explicitArray.size))
{
   print(" "+explicitArray[i])
}

4. Conditionals

We are going to make a series of if statements to verify login details.

Reproduce the following:

Code... [36 lines]

 
fun main() {
   
   var showAccountPage : Boolean = false
   var user : Boolean = false
   var password : Boolean = false

   val userName : String = "AUsername"
   val userPassword: String = "1c4n234d13375p34k!" // if you know, you know...

   var inputtedUserName : String? = ""
   var inputtedPassword : String? = ""

   println("Username: ")
   inputtedUserName = readlnOrNull()
   println("Password: ")
   inputtedPassword = readlnOrNull()

   if (userName == inputtedUserName )
   {
      user = true
      if(userPassword == inputtedPassword){
            password = true
            if (user == true && password == true)
            {
               showAccountPage = true
               print("Successfully logged in")
            }
      }
      else{
            print("Password does not match: $inputtedPassword")
      }
   }
   else{
      print("Username does not match: $inputtedUserName")
   }
}

Breaking the code down:

  • Booleans

    • showAccountPage: A Boolean variable indicating whether the account page should be displayed. It is set to true only if both username and password match the predefined values.
    • user: A Boolean variable indicating whether the inputted username matches the predefined username. It is set to true if the usernames match.
    • password: A Boolean variable indicating whether the inputted password matches the predefined password. It is set to true if the passwords match.

  • Strings

    • userName: A predefined String containing the correct username.
    • userPassword: A predefined String containing the correct password.

  • Inputs

    • inputtedUserName: A String variable to store the username input by the user.
    • inputtedPassword: A String variable to store the password input by the user. Note that both of these are nullable, ?, meaning that if not String is supplied it is not going to crash

  • Nested if

    • While the code will work as intended, readability is the issue, we have a three deep if.
      • userName is checked, if a match, then password, if a match, then account page.

Run the code and try to login using the correct and incorrect credentials.

Let's refactor the code and reduce the number of nested if statements:

Code... [31 lines]

 
fun main() {

   var showAccountPage = false
   var user = false
   var password = false

   val userName = "AUsername"
   val userPassword = "1c4n234d13375p34k!" // if you know, you know...

   println("Username: ")
   val inputtedUserName = readlnOrNull()
   println("Password: ")
   val inputtedPassword = readlnOrNull()

   if (userName == inputtedUserName) {
      user = true
   }

   if (userPassword == inputtedPassword) {
      password = true
   }

   if (user && password) {
      showAccountPage = true
      println("Successfully logged in")
   }
   else {
      println("Username and or Password does not match")
      exitProcess(1)
   }
}

Note

Note how we only check to see if the credentials are true, and if they both are we can login, else it does not. We have gone from 32 lines to 27, is there a way to refactor further?