String.Empty Field

Language Design
16

Here’s a case I’ve just got.

data class Person(val firstName: String, val middleName: String? = null, val lastName: String) {
    val fullName: String = "$firstName $middleName $lastName"
}

Here’s what I’m getting if middle name is NULL

John null Doe

What I have to do now is to add an emptyString constant which I can use in this string interpolation. It would be much simpler if language would offer this already.

I need to use NULL default value here, because this is stored in database and is send over several SOAP and REST requests.