Is it better to write this initialization logic in...

# codingconventions

[Florian]

Is it better to write this initialization logic into an init block or directly on the property?

val name: String = if (name.isBlank()) "No Name" else name.trim()

vs

init {
    if (name.isBlank()) {
        this.name = "No Name"
    } else {
        this.name = name.trim()
    }
}

[sikri]

val name = name.takeIf { isNotBlank() }?.trim() ?: “No Name”

[Matteo Mirk]

You will definitely not pass a code review with me, trying to get the above into master 😂

[Florian]

@Matteo Mirk Are you referring to me or @sikri?

[sikri]

To me, of course, guys cannot handle the =CoOl CoDe=

[Matteo Mirk]

Yes @Florian, I was referring to @sikri snippet. To me, that is very cool for code golf, but not suitable for production code, which needs to be maintained by many devs 😉

[Florian]

Thank you for the clarification

[Florian]

I can't find many valid examples for init blocks that don't throw an exception

[Florian]

I can only find examples that are better of directly on the property

[Florian]

like

val name: String

init {
    name = "Hans"
}

[Cody Engel]

I think the first line makes more sense. I usually reserve the init block for situations when the entire class has some setup that takes place (such a a custom view with Android), if it’s just setting up the property then I think it’s better for that to live at it’s definition.

[Florian]

Thanks Cody 👍

[Florian]

but transforming the input like I do it here is generally not good convention, is it?

[Florian]

Should it throw an exception instead if the name is not valid?

[Matteo Mirk]

Yes you should: you don’t want an invalid object to be constructed, a class guarantees validity and invariants consistency of the type it’s representing, so it should definitely throw on invalid input