A modern programming language that makes developers happier.

kotlinlang

<@U5QK61PK7> There is firstOrNull if you want to get nullable value. Reason - you can use `first` and get nonnull result

Thanks for the reply <@U0BRK9HC5>, but I don’t really understand what you meant by ```you can use `first` and get nonnull result```

Doesn’t that mean I am guaranteed a result? But using ‘first’ clearly throws an exception, meaning there’s still a chance my result will be a null.

The only use case I can think for ‘first’ is if my dataset is guaranteed to have some data that might match my predicate.

No, of course it doesn’t guarantee result, it’s just different approaches, sometimes you want to get item or throw exception otherwise, so result will be non-nullable (so you shouldn’t handle possible nullable values)

If null result is okay for you case, just use firstOrNull

<@U0BHS1Y07>, what is the difference between `firstOrNull` and `find`?

`find` will iterate the whole list trying to find the element that matches the predicate

`firstOrNull` won't, as it will return on the 1st element or null right away

<@U19UGKG8P> Forgive me if I’m just blind or dumb, but from the source code it seems that `find` is just wrapping around `firstOrNull`

```
/**
 * Returns the first element matching the given [predicate], or `null` if no such element was found.
 */
@kotlin.internal.InlineOnly
public inline fun &lt;T&gt; Iterable&lt;T&gt;.find(predicate: (T) -&gt; Boolean): T? {
    return firstOrNull(predicate)
}
```

oh yeah, we are talking about different `firstOrNull`

one that takes the parameter, which is exactly what you found

and one that doesn't, which returns the first element of the list

<https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/blob/1.1.2/libraries/stdlib/src/generated/_Collections.kt#L194>

so yes, if you're using `firstOrNull` with a certain predicate, then it is the exact same thing as `find`

&gt; same thing as `firstOrNull`
as `first`. `first` is just alias for `firstOrNull`

There was an argument about naming because `find` is used in other langs, but `firstOrNull` is more explicit and "kotlin way"

do `find` is an alias to `findOrNull` (it is also shorter)

AFAIK this is the only place in stdlib where functions duplicate each other