is there a better way to write this? : `users = listOf("klaus", "sepperl")+if (addChris) listOf("chr...

# codereview

[christophsturm]

is there a better way to write this? : users = listOf("klaus", "sepperl")+if (addChris) listOf("chris") else listOf()

[Luke]

You can use `buildList`:

users = buildList {
    addAll("klaus", "sepperl")
    if (addChris) add("chris")
}

[christophsturm]

thanks! thats more performant for sure. but also a bit verbose

[Zach Klippenstein (he/him) [MOD]]

Is it? else listOf() is pretty verbose too. And i think it’s dangerous to try to minimize “verbosity”. It’s much more important to maximize readability, and sometimes going too far down the verbosity route can make code harder to read. The buildList code is extremely readable imo. There’s zero code there that doesn’t express something relevant about what it’s doing.

[christophsturm]

its way better than my version for sure.

[christophsturm]

for some reason i would just prefer users= buildList("klaus", "sepperl") { if (addChris) add("chris") }

[christophsturm]

@Zach Klippenstein (he/him) [MOD] btw, “also a bit verbose” meant “also like the original example”

[Luke]

Well... You could also do:

users = mutableListOf("klaus", "sepperl").apply {
    if (addChris) add("chris")
} // .toList() if you want a read-only list

[ilya.gorbunov]

listOfNotNull("klaus", "sepperl", "chris".takeIf { addChris})

[christophsturm]

thats pretty cool