Intro

Android KTX is an open-source library or set of functionalities designed to make Android development with Kotlin even more pleasant. The abbreviation KTX stands for Kotlin Extensions, so this library is basically a set of extension functions, extension properties, and other top-level functions. In this article, we take a look at what's inside this library and how we can take advantage of it. This library's goal is not to add new features to the existing Android APIs, but rather to make those APIs easier to use by leveraging the features of the Kotlin language.

Structure

A very important thing to note at the beginning is that Android KTX provides functionalities that would be added to many individual projects by the developers most of the time anyway. Arguably, there are also many things that will get included by adding the dependency, which are not going to be used. Thanks to the ProGuard, all the unused code will get stripped out, so there should be no worry regarding the library footprint. Now, let's take a look at some of the very important and crucial concepts of the Kotlin language which are used for building the Android KTX.

Extension functions

An extension function is one of the Kotlin's features that allows us to add functionality to an existing class without modifying it directly. By adding extension functions to a class, they are represented as simple static methods on the bytecode level. Then, we can call those functions on the objects of that class type as if they were part of the class's API initially. Here is an example to give a little better insight into the way it's done. Say, we want to add an extension function to the String class to print itself. Here is how we can do it:

fun String.printSelf() {
    println(this)
}

Inside the extension function, we can use this to refer to the current object on which the function is being executed. Then, this function becomes available to be called on any object of String type. So we can do:

fun usage() {
    "Kotlin Rocks".printSelf()
}

Extension properties

Similarly to extension function, Kotlin supports extension properties. Also, the way we define them is quite the same:

val String.isLongEnough: Boolean
    get() = this.length > 5

Then, we can use this extension property on any object of String type:

"Kotlin".isLongEnough

The behavior of the extension property can only be defined by explicitly providing getter (plus setter for vars). Initializing those properties the ordinary way doesn't work. The reason behind this is that an extension property does not insert members into the type, so there is no efficient way for it to have a backing field.

Top level functions

In Kotlin, a function is a first-class citizen. We are allowed to define functions in Kotlin files (.kt) which could afterward be accessed and used from other Kotlin files. This is a very powerful concept. If we define a file inside a package com.example and define functions in it, they can be used simply by importing them into the usage side. Here is an example:

package com.example

fun sum(x: Int, y: Int): Int = x + y

now this function can be accessed and used from any other Kotlin file by simply importing it like this:

import com.example.sum

fun test() {
    println(sum(1, 2))
}

An important note here is the access modifier. In the example above, the function sum does not have defined an access modifier, and in Kotlin it's public by default. Being public, it makes the sum function accessible from any other Kotlin file. Kotlin also has an internal access modifier keyword, which would make this function accessible only in the module where this file exists (a module could contain many different packages). Ultimately, the function could also be private which will make it accessible only from inside the file where it is defined.

Default arguments

Most probably, you are familiar with the overloading concept like in Java already. Overloading is a concept that allows us to define constructors or methods with the same signature, only differing in their parameter list (both types and number of parameters could be different). In Kotlin, this concept is taken a step further, so we could achieve the same result by defining a single function, by specifying default values to some or all of the arguments. Eventually, it boils down to the approach used in Java again. Let's take a look at the following example:

fun greet(firstName: String, lastName: String = "") {
    println("Hello $firstName $lastName")
}

In this example, the function takes two arguments, but the lastName is optional because by default its value is going to be an empty String. So, when calling this function we are only required to supply a firstName, and we can call it this way:

greet("John")

Kotlin also supports named arguments, so we could call a function supplying the arguments by their names:

greet("John", lastName = "Doe")

This is particularly useful when we have a function with multiple optional arguments and we want to call it by supplying only specific ones, or in a different order.

Deep Dive

Now, as we know what the Android KTX library is based on, let's dig and observe some of the most common extension functions.

Converting URL to URI

To begin with, there is a very simple extension function in the Uri class. Many times in Android, we need to convert a String URL into a Uri object, for instance when creating an Intent with data, etc. The way we are usually doing this is by calling Uri.parse("string_url"). Android KTX defines an extension function that does the job. Here is how it looks like:

inline fun String.toUri(): Uri = Uri.parse(this)

so we can use it by calling toUri() on any string, like this:

"any_sting_url".toUri()

Editing shared preferences

Next, let's take a look at an extension function defined on the SharedPreferences interface. The usual way of putting values into the SharedPreferences in Android is to call edit() in order to obtain the SharedPreferences.Editor instance. Then, we can insert the values by calling editor.putType("key", typeValue). After that, it is very important to call apply() or commit() on the editor, in order for the values to be stored in the SharedPreferences. Many times we forget doing so, and we waste some time debugging until we notice what is happening. A usual example of storing values in the SharedPreferences looks like this:

val editor = sharedPreferences.edit()
editor.putString("key", value)
editor.apply()

By using the Android KTX extension on the SharedPreferences the code shortens and simplifies quite a lot, and it becomes:

sharedPreferences.edit {
    putString("key", value)
}

The relevant extension function looks like this:

inline fun SharedPreferences.edit(
    commit: Boolean = false,
    action: SharedPreferences.Editor.() -> Unit
) {
    val editor = edit()
    action(editor)
    if (commit) {
        editor.commit()
    } else {
        editor.apply()
    }
}

The first parameter to this function is a Boolean value that controls the call to the editor, whether it would use the commit() or the apply() call. Clearly, by default this value is set to false which means by default the function will call apply() on the editor. A more interesting parameter is the second one. It's a function literal with a receiver, and the receiver is of type SharedPreferences.Editor. It means that when calling this function, we can use lambda over the receiver, so we can directly call functions that are exposed by the receiver type without additional qualifiers. This is shown with the putString call.

Operating on view before drawing

Most of the apps we are using every day are having some sort of lists where some images are being loaded. Often, those images are of a different size, and the image sizes are usually provided in the response. Since the images are normally loaded in the background, we want to allocate the space required for the image to be displayed, and once it's loaded we already have the space allocated, so we would avoid UI expanding when the image is being displayed, which prevents the UI flickering effect. This is usually done by using a ViewTreeObserver which provides an OnPreDrawListener. This listener has a callback that is being called before the view drawing. For our images example, usually, we set the view sizes that are provided in the response inside this callback, and we apply some default background (for example gray). That is one of the many use cases of the ViewTreeObserver observer and its OnPreDrawListener. Here is a snippet that shows the way we normally approach it:

view.viewTreeObserver.addOnPreDrawListener(
    object : ViewTreeObserver.OnPreDrawListener {
        override fun onPreDraw(): Boolean {
            viewTreeObserver.removeOnPreDrawListener(this)
            performSomethingOverTheView()
            return true
        }
    })

Android KTX has defined an extension function on the View type named doOnPreDraw() that simplifies the above snippet, so it would become:

view.doOnPreDraw {
     performSomethingOverTheView()
}

There are also some other nice extensions defined on the View type which are working with the view visibility, updating view padding or layout params, etc.

Working with bundles

Bundles are a very common thing in Android, but working with bundles is often quite a boilerplate. The way we normally compose a bundle looks like this:

val bundle = Bundle()
bundle.putString("key", "value")
bundle.putString("keyBoolean", true)
bundle.putString("keyInt", 1)

Android KTX defines a top-level function named bundleOf(), and by using it, composing bundle becomes a lot nicer:

val bundle = bundleOf("key" to "value", "keyBoolean" to true, "keyInt" to 1)

There is also a persistableBundleOf() function for creating a PersistableBundle but it's available for API version 21 and up. Similarly, there is a contentValuesOf() function that could be used in the same way as the functions for creating the bundle above, and it returns a ContentValues object.

Iteration over a view group

Working with ViewGroup in Android is quite a common thing. The ViewGroup is a kind of container that could contain other views called children. Many times we need to loop through its children, but the traditional way to do so could be quite a mess. Android KTX has defined an extension property that exposes its children, and here is how it looks like:

val ViewGroup.children: Sequence<View>
    get() = object : Sequence<View> {
        override fun iterator() = this@children.iterator()
    }

As we can see, the children property is returning a sequence of child views, and it allows us to write very concise loops over any ViewGroup type:

viewGroup.children.forEach {
    doSomething(it)
}

Displaying toast

One of the most common ways of displaying some sort of short info to the user is a Toast. When displaying a toast by using the standard API, we have to pass the Context, the actual message that we want to be displayed, whether it is a String or a resource reference to load value from the strings.xml, and the toast duration. Since we cannot display a toast without having a Context, and since most of the time the toast duration is its Toast.LENGTH_SHORT constant, it would be great to have an option to display a toast by simply calling a function and passing the actual message argument. A common way to achieve this is by defining some sort of base class that defines such a method, and then it would be called from the subclasses. However, Android KTX defines an extension function to the Context type for displaying toasts. It takes 2 arguments, the message, and the duration, while the duration is being set to Toast.LENGTH_SHORT by default. So we can call to display toast wherever we have a Context by simply passing the message argument, whether it is a String type or a reference to the string resources:

toast("Hello")
toast(R.string.hello)

Wrap Up

Android KTX is a very nice part of the Android JetPack project, and as we've seen it contains quite some nice ways to improve the Android development we are used to. As told before, it doesn't provide any new functionalities, but rather simplifies the APIs which are already provided by the Android SDK. Here is a nice talk from the Google I/O 2018 by Jake Wharton, where he elaborates more on the Android KTX. This article only scratches the surface, and there are many more fun things to be revealed inside the Android KTX, related to animation, database, location, graphics, text and so on. Also, the team is welcoming new contributions, which is great, so if you have an idea that is not there yet, feel free to submit it.