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Kotlin Crash Course for Programmers

Kotlin's Type Inference

Explore how Kotlin's compiler automatically infers variable types to simplify code writing without sacrificing clarity. Understand type inference for literals, objects, and function return types, and learn when to use explicit types for better code readability and abstraction.

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Type inference is a compiler feature that allows you to omit types in your code when the compiler can infer it for you.

Type Inference in Kotlin #

Kotlin’s compiler can infer the types of most variables, so adding the type is optional:

Kotlin
// Run the code to see the variable's types
val string = "Educative"
val int = 27
val long = 42L
val double = 2.71828
val float = 1.23f
val bool = true

Note: The terms on the left-hand side of the equals sign are just the variable names, not the data types.

Type Inference for Literals #

The compiler automatically infers that the string ...