Why is there no package visibility modifier in kotlln? For example, I have a package for my DB access in my server. I want to only expose one class to the rest of the app to avoid confusion. In the package I also have several repositorieclasses for each of my enteties, I do not want for example the controllers package to access those repositories directly, I want it instead to go through my master

DB

class. How can I do that in kotlin?

Take a look at

internal

modifier

package visibility has never made it into kotlin because you could create a class with the same package in another module and get access to the other class in another module

But a module is something so much bigger, My server app is always gonna be one module right? Its always one gradle project.

you could split the code up into different modules and only expose the

DB

Yeah I guess, have never understood the whole module thing though, seems complicated. So a server can consist of several different modules, is that common? I still want to build it all from one gradle command and all

Yeah you can split your gradle project into a multi-project and still build it with one gradle command

Damn that seems anoyying, I guess I have to read up on it. Seems like it will create a bunch of new problems that I really do not want to deal with. I am not writing a public api here, im just writing my own little app.

Then why is public an issue?

Its not an issue from a security standpoint, only from a structure standpoint. When I am in my controllers package working I don’t want to have access to my entire DB package, I only want to be able to access one class from it (

DB

) I just get so much junk in autocomplete as it is now. I was used to making stuff package private from java and I found it very useful and clean.

I see a couple options, but depends on team size, and preferences which one will work best. None are as convenient as package private, though. 1. Pull DB into its own module/library so then only public items will be visible 2. Configure IDE so that it ignores the files/packages you don’t want exposed. This could be facilitated by having a package with a unique name within the DB ‘module’. Of course this requires all team members to update their IDE configuration.