I am probably missing something, how can you retri...

# getting-started

[Johann Pardanaud]

I am probably missing something, how can you retrieve the class of a property represented by KProperty?

For example, if I have:

class Foo(val bar: Bar)
class Bar()

val fooInstance = Foo(Bar())

val kprop = fooInstance::bar

The type of kprop is KProperty0<Bar>. How can I obtain a KClass<Bar> from this property reflection? This would allow to reference some properties contained in the Bar class, or even some deeply nested properties.

Basically, I’m trying to reproduce what a Key-Path expression does in Swift, but in a Kotlin way 🙂

[Sam]

I’m not sure if it’s possible to unbind a bound reference 🤔 the original KEEP implies that the information about the receiver type isn’t actually retained

[Sam]

Foo::bar.instanceParameter?.type would get you the type of Foo, but of course fooInstance::bar doesn’t have an instance parameter

[ephemient]

is something like https://arrow-kt.io/docs/optics/ what you're trying to achieve?

[Johann Pardanaud]

Arrow Optics seems to match what I would like to do yes. Is this the only solution? Because having to use an annotation could be an issue with some use cases, like protobuf generated code for example, because I’m not the one writing the code of the class.

Basically, what I want is to create a function which is able to receive an object and a path to one of its properties (nested or not), then the function will be able to read and write the value of the referenced property.
So, in Sam words, I think I might need “unbound references”? But it doesn’t seem feasible?

[Sam]

If you can write and pass Foo::bar, which is an unbound reference, that will work fine. From your original post it sounds like you want to pass fooInstance::bar instead, which is what makes it tricky because that’s a bound reference and can’t (as far as I know) be converted to an unbound reference.

[Johann Pardanaud]

Oh yeah sorry, I can perfectly use Foo::bar

[ephemient]

you could build a chain like

class Foo(val bar: Bar)
class Bar(val baz: Int)

operator fun <T, U, V> ((T) -> U).plus(then: (U) -> V): (T) -> V = {
    then.invoke(this.invoke(it))
}

fun main() {
    val fooInstance = Foo(Bar(0))

    println((Foo::bar + Bar::baz)(fooInstance))
}

using unbound references, although I don't think that's very workable without supporting compiler plugins and libraries like Arrow Optics

[Sam]

Reminds me of https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44750881/kotlin-nested-property-reference

[Sam]

The + operator overload is a neat addition 👍

[Johann Pardanaud]

This is perfect @ephemient! Even if its quite lengthy, I can make something out of this.

Thank you to both of you, you helped me understand a bit more how Kotlin reflection works. 🙏

[David Kubecka]

What @ephemient wrote seems to be a general way of composing functions in Kotlin. I wonder whether there are any plans to put this into stdlib (you know, to promote the functional style a bit more).