If you implement a Java interface that defines a getter:

interface Something {
  String getAConstant();
}

and you want the value of

getAConstant

to be a constant, is there a less verbose way than this?

class ConcreteSomething : Something {
  private val _constant = "constant value"
  override fun getAConstant(): String = _constant
}

(It's not actually a String, it's calculated by calling other methods on a supertype using a constructor value, just simplifying things.)

override fun getAConstant() = "constant_value"

(It can thereafter be used as though it were a val,

ConcreteSomething().aConstant

, but it has to be defined as a function because it's a Java interface.)

@Klitos Kyriacou The initializer in the example is a constant string but it's mentioned that in real life the expression is more complex. I think what Rob meant is that the value shouldn't be recomputed every time. If you define the function this way, the body will be re-evaluated every time, which I think is not what Rob wants.

Related: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-6653

Ah thanks, I was looking for that link!

Thanks, yes that was what I was getting at, good to know I haven't missed some better way.

So yeah I think your best option right now is what you already did: define a private property with initializer, and then just read that property in the explicitly overridden getter function.