Hey, looking for clean ways to return composables ...

# compose

[Fergus Hewson]

Hey, looking for clean ways to return composables based on nullability and predicates as opposed to if else statements. Take a look at the example below and let mw know what you think?

[Fergus Hewson]

@Composable
fun example() {
    val label: String? = null
    // annoying
    OutlinedTextField(
        value = "",
        onValueChange = {},
        label = if (label != null) {
            { Text(text = "label") }
        } else null
    )
    // Clean
    OutlinedTextField(
        value = "",
        onValueChange = {},
        label = label.letCompose { Text(text = "$it") }
    )
}

@Composable
private fun <T> T?.letCompose(
    block: @Composable (T) -> Unit
): (@Composable () -> Unit)? {
    return if (this != null) {
        @Composable {
            block(this)
        }
    } else null
}

@Composable
private fun Boolean?.ifCompose(
    block: @Composable (Boolean) -> Unit
): @Composable (() -> Unit)? {
    return if (this != null && this) {
        @Composable {
            block(this)
        }
    } else null
}

@Composable
fun test() {
    var a: Boolean? = null
    a.ifCompose { Text(text = "$it") } // Won't return composable
    a = false
    a.ifCompose { Text(text = "$it") } // Won't return composable
    a = true
    a.ifCompose { Text(text = "$it") } // Will return composable

    var b: String? = null
    b.letCompose { Text(text = it) } // Won't return composable
    b = "s"
    b.letCompose { Text(text = it) } // Will return composable
}

[jw]

Part of the whole point of how Compose was designed was so that you can use imperative control flow rather than functional idioms.

[Fergus Hewson]

So these ideas are not idiomatic?

[Olivier Patry]

I see this similar to things like .takeIf {} or the like which are convenient sometimes, especially when you can benefit from non null smart cast on the object you reason about

[Fergus Hewson]

it basically is takeIf / let but for composables

[tad]

You can also return a lambda from let or takeIf

[tad]

Just double up the curly braces