Search⌘ K
AI Features
Home
Courses
Mastering Kotlin Essentials

Utilizing Generics in Inheritance and Implementation

Explore how to apply generics within Kotlin inheritance and interface implementation to create flexible, reusable, and type-safe code structures. Understand independent type parameters and their role in class hierarchies for robust programming.

We'll cover the following...

Type parameters and inheritance

Classes can inherit from open generic classes or implement generic interfaces; however, in both cases, they must explicitly specify the type argument. Consider the code below. Class A inherits from C<Int> and implements I<String>.

Kotlin 1.5
open class C<T>
interface I<T>
class A : C<Int>(), I<String>
@Suppress("UNUSED_VARIABLE")
fun main() {
    val a = A()
    val c: C<Int> = a
    val i: I<String> = a
}
...