Let confusion

1

If I understand correctly when you use let it should run the code in the block if the condition is true but I am finding inconsistency with that so I wrote the following simple code to test it out…

    val str = ""

    str.isNotEmpty().let {
        println("is not empty")
    }

    str.isEmpty().let {
        println("is empty")
    }

The results were…

is not empty
is empty

So what I am wondering is how it can be both empty and not empty at the same time?

2

Calls the specified function block with this value as its argument and returns its result.

Try:

str.isEmpty().let { check ->
    println("is empty: $check")
}
3

I guess what I am trying to do is…

    if (str.isNotEmpty()) {
        
    }

As a default it starts as empty and gets late initialised and thats what i am checking.

It sounds like the let block happens and has nothing to do with true or false

I heard of the ?.let check for not null and wrongly assumed it would work this way when linked to isNotEmpty()

4

Just as you say. T.let{…} has nothing to do with true or false.

1 Like
5

let is used to check null

str?.let {
  print("str is not null")
}
6

One way to do that is to combine it with takeIf or takeUnless (which were introduced in Kotlin 1.1):

str.takeIf{ it.isNotEmpty() }?.let { }

Probably not a good replacement in this case, but it is useful for filtering in a long string of chained method calls sometimes.

See: takeIf - Kotlin Programming Language

7

Technically, it is not let that is checking the null but the safe call operator (?.)