Printing a function with return type String in Kotlin

Question

Code:

fun main() {    
    val amanda = Person("Amanda", 33, "play tennis", null)
    val atiqah = Person("Atiqah", 28, "climb", amanda)
    
    amanda.showProfile()
    atiqah.showProfile()
}

class Person(val name: String, val age: Int, val hobby: String?, val referrer: Person?) {
    fun showProfile() {
        fun reference(referrer: Person?): String {
            return if(referrer!=null) "Has a referrer named ${referrer.name}, who likes to ${referrer.hobby}." else "Doesn't have a referrer.\n"
        }
        println("Name: $name\nAge: $age\nLikes to $hobby. \$${reference(referrer)}")
    }
}

Expected output:

Name: Amanda
Age: 33
Likes to play tennis. Doesn't have a referrer.

Name: Atiqah
Age: 28
Likes to climb. Has a referrer named Amanda, who likes to play tennis.

Actual output:

Name: Amanda
Age: 33
Likes to play tennis. $Doesn't have a referrer.

Name: Atiqah
Age: 28
Likes to climb. $Has a referrer named Amanda, who likes to play tennis.

As you can see, I'm getting the '$' sign before the output of the function reference. Is there any way to remove it?

Answer 1

Got it! Just had to remove '$' in println before the function & voila! it works perfectly.

fun main() {    
  val amanda = Person("Amanda", 33, "play tennis", null)
  val atiqah = Person("Atiqah", 28, "climb", amanda)

  amanda.showProfile()
  atiqah.showProfile()
}

class Person(val name: String, val age: Int, val hobby: String?, val referrer: Person?) {
  fun showProfile() {
    fun reference(referrer: Person?): String {
        return if(referrer!=null) "Has a referrer named ${referrer.name}, who likes to ${referrer.hobby}." else "Doesn't have a referrer.\n"
    }
    println("Name: $name\nAge: $age\nLikes to $hobby. ${reference(referrer)}")
  }
}