How do I return a value from a flow? Trying to return the myString value

suspend fun doSomething(): String {
   val myFlow = flow { emit("hello") }
   myFlow.collect { myString ->
        return myString
   }
}

Are you guaranteed that the

Flow

will emit one item? Or are you looking to return the first emitted item?

Looking to return the first item emitted

You could use the

first()

operator: https://klassbook.commonsware.com/lessons/Flows%20and%20Channels/first-flow.html

How would I approach this if the flow isn’t guaranteed to emit only one item?

first()

collects the first item only. So:

import kotlinx.coroutines.*
import kotlinx.coroutines.flow.*

suspend fun doSomething(): String {
   val myFlow = flow { emit("hello"); emit("world") }
   return myFlow.first()
}

fun main() {
  GlobalScope.launch {
    println(doSomething())
  }
}

still just prints

hello

, even though the flow emits two items.

You can also use

Flow<T>.single()

if you want to guarantee that only one value is published. https://kotlin.github.io/kotlinx.coroutines/kotlinx-coroutines-core/kotlinx.coroutines.flow/single.html