is it possible to write a contract where somthing ...

# announcements

[thana]

is it possible to write a contract where somthing implies, that a method will not return null? (all examples i can find implie the other way round)

[LeoColman]

I think that if by design your method can either be nullable or no-nullable, depending on a variable

[LeoColman]

Maybe your design is not correct, and you should refactor the two cases

[thana]

damn, that would be far easier, thats right 😄

[LeoColman]

Can you show us an example of what you're trying to do?

[thana]

in fact you are just right - i should split it into two methods. you know that sitautions where you feel really stupid for not seeing the obvious? 😂

[streetsofboston]

Oh... we've all been there, Malte! :-D

[LeoColman]

And we'll be there many more times

[LeoColman]

Classic http://xyproblem.info/ perhaps?

[thana]

na not really... the emssage has a boolean flag (which is bad on it's own, too), and when it's false it will return a non-null value - always.
i knew this smeels before, but then i saw a colleague using it, and he had to use ?. all over the place and i though "hey this is kotlin! it has a cool feature that might solve this problem" and didn't realise it would be much easier to simply split the method into two

[thana]

so... maybe.. it's excactly the problem 🤷

[LeoColman]

I like how Kotlin makes some code smells even more smelly hahaha

[thana]

😄