Kotlin Collections

Difficulty Level : Easy
Last Updated : 13 Apr, 2020

Similar to Java Collections, Kotlin also introduced the concept of collections. A collection usually contains a number of objects of the same type and these objects in the collection are called elements or items.

Kotlin Standard Library provides a rich set of tools for managing collections.

Types of Collections –
In Kotlin collections are categories into two forms.

Immutable Collection
Mutable Collection

Immutable means that it supports only read-only functionalities and can not be modified its elements. Immutable Collections and their corresponding methods are:

List – listOf() and listOf<T>()
Set – setOf()
Map – mapOf()

List – It is an ordered collection in which we can access to elements or items by using indices – integer numbers that define position for each element. Elements can be repeated in a list any number of times. We can perform add or remove operations in the immutable list.

Kotlin program to demonstrate the immutable list –

// An example for immutable list
fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    val immutableList = listOf("Mahipal","Nikhil","Rahul")
    // gives compile time error 
    // immutableList.add = "Praveen"
    for(item in immutableList){
        println(item)
    }
}

Output:

Mahipal
Nikhil
Rahul

Set – It is a collection of unordered elements also it does not support duplicate elements. It is a collection of unique elements. Generally, the order of set elements does not has significant effect. We can not perform add or remove operations because it is immutable Set.

Kotlin program to demonstrate the immutable set –

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    // initialize with duplicate values but output with no repeatition
    var immutableSet = setOf(6,9,9,0,0,"Mahipal","Nikhil")
    // gives compile time error
    //immutableSet.add(7)
    for(item in immutableSet){
        println(item)
    }
}

Output:

6
9
0
Mahipal
Nikhil

Map – Map keys are unique and holds only one value for each key, it is a set of key-value pairs. Each key maps to exactly one value. The values can be duplicates but keys should be unique. Maps are used to store logical connections between two objects, for example, a student ID and their name. As it is immutable it’s size is fixed and it’s methods supports read-only access.

Kotlin program to demonstrate the immutable map –

// An example for immutable map
fun main(args : Array<String>) {
    var immutableMap = mapOf(9 to "Mahipal",8 to "Nikhil",7 to "Rahul")
    // gives compile time error
    // immutableMap.put(9,"Praveen")
    for(key in immutableMap.keys){
        println(immutableMap[key])
    }
}

Output:

Mahipal
Nikhil
Rahul

Mutable Collection supports both read and write functionalities. Mutable collections and their corresponding methods are:

List – mutableListOf(),arrayListOf() and ArrayList
Set – mutableSetOf(), hashSetOf()
Map – mutableMapOf(), hashMapOf() and HashMap

List – Since mutable list supports read and write operation, declared elements in the list can either be removed or added.

Kotlin program to demonstrate the mutable list –

fun main(args : Array<String>) {
    var mutableList = mutableListOf("Mahipal","Nikhil","Rahul")
    // we can modify the element
    mutableList[0] = "Praveen"
    // add one more element in the list
    mutableList.add("Abhi")
    for(item in mutableList){
        println(item)
    }
}

Output:

Praveen
Nikhil
Rahul
Abhi

Set – The mutable Set supports both read and write functionality. We can access add or remove elements from the collections easily and it will preserve the order of the elements.

Kotlin program to demonstrate the mutable list –

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    var mutableSet = mutableSetOf<Int>(6,10)
    // adding elements in set
    mutableSet.add(2)
    mutableSet.add(5)
    for(item in mutableSet){
        println(item)
    }
}

Output:

Map – It is mutable so it supports functionalities like put, remove, clear etc.

Kotlin program to demonstrate the mutable list –

fun main(args : Array<String>) {
    var mutableMap = mutableMapOf<Int,String>(1 to "Mahipal",2 to "Nikhil",3 to "Rahul")
    // we can modify the element
    mutableMap.put(1,"Praveen")
    // add one more element in the list
    mutableMap.put(4,"Abhi")
    for(item in mutableMap.values){
        println(item)
    }
}

Output:

Praveen
Nikhil
Rahul
Abhi

Attention reader! Don’t stop learning now. Get hold of all the important DSA concepts with the DSA Self Paced Course at a student-friendly price and become industry ready.

My Personal Notes

Related Articles