can anyone explain the reified keyword to me? What I'm reading online isn't making a whole lot of sense and I need it to click

Generics in Kotlin are non-reified (same as in JVM), it means that they are erased after compilation, so you don’t have access to real generic class:

fun <T> foo() {
        println(T::class) //Will not compile
}

But Kotlin supports also reified generics (but only for inline functions), it means that compiler will compile this code in different way and allow you access to real generic type class:

inline fun <reified T> foo() {
        println(T::class) //Works fine
}

I have a function:

inline fun <reified T> View.findParentOfType(): T? {
    var p = parent
    while (p != null && p !is T) p = p.parent
    return p as T?
}

which lets me call for example:

email.findParentOfType<TextInputLayout>()?.error ?: email.error

The function gets decompiled to:

private static final Object findParentOfType(@NotNull View $receiver) {
  ViewParent p;
  for(p = $receiver.getParent(); p != null; p = p.getParent()) {
     Intrinsics.reifiedOperationMarker(3, "T");
     if(p instanceof Object) {
        break;
     }
  }

  Intrinsics.reifiedOperationMarker(1, "T?");
  return (Object)p;
}

Which leaves the question of how it works open to me, honestly. What’s up with the

if(p instanceof Object) break;

? 😄

It can be a problem of decompilation, always check bytecode instead.

that makes much more sense! Thank you

Hmm, bytecode shows the same thing. Here’s a simpler example:

inline fun <reified T> View.parentIsInstance() = parent is T

shows this bytecode:

// access flags 0x1A
  // signature <T:Ljava/lang/Object;>(Landroid/view/View;)Z
  // declaration: boolean parentIsInstance<T>(android.view.View)
  private final static parentIsInstance(Landroid/view/View;)Z
    @Lorg/jetbrains/annotations/NotNull;() // invisible, parameter 0
   L0
    LINENUMBER 137 L0
    ALOAD 0
    INVOKEVIRTUAL android/view/View.getParent ()Landroid/view/ViewParent;
    ICONST_3
    LDC "T"
    INVOKESTATIC kotlin/jvm/internal/Intrinsics.reifiedOperationMarker (ILjava/lang/String;)V
    INSTANCEOF java/lang/Object
    IRETURN
   L1
    LOCALVARIABLE $receiver Landroid/view/View; L0 L1 0
    LOCALVARIABLE $i$f$parentIsInstance I L0 L1 1
    MAXSTACK = 3
    MAXLOCALS = 2

Decompiled to:

private static final boolean parentIsInstance(@NotNull View $receiver) {
      ViewParent var10000 = $receiver.getParent();
      Intrinsics.reifiedOperationMarker(3, "T");
      return var10000 instanceof Object;
   }