Kotlin has delegated properties which is a very nice feature. But sometimes get()
and set()
methods are not enough. Let's say I want to create a Closeable
object lazily and to close it later. Here's an example of how such delegate property could be implemented:
fun <T : Closeable> closeableLazy(initializer: () -> T) =
CloseableLazyVal(initializer)
class CloseableLazyVal<T : Closeable>(
private val initializer: () -> T
) : ReadOnlyProperty<Any?, T> {
private var value: T? = null
override fun get(thisRef: Any?, desc: PropertyMetadata): T {
if (value == null) {
value = initializer()
}
return value
}
fun close() {
value?.close()
}
}
And that's how I would like to use it:
private val stream by closeableLazy { FileOutputStream("/path/to/file") }
fun writeBytes(bytes: ByteArray) {
stream.write(bytes)
}
override fun close() {
stream::delegate.close() // This line will not compile
}
Unfortunately, this approach doesn't work because it seems that Kotlin doesn't allow to access property delegates directly. Is there any way to do what I want? Or are there any plans to add such functionality to Kotlin because it would be such a neat feature.
Ok, so I came up with the following solution:
Notice, that the property's get method has a parameter
thisRef
. I require that it inherits fromCloseableDelegateHost
which will close any registeredCloseable
s when it is closed. To simplify the implementation I delegate this interface to a simple list-based implementation.UPDATE (copied from comments): I realized, you can just declare the delegate as a separate property and then delegate the second property to it. This way you can access the delegate itself easily.