Adam Hurwitz
1 min readMar 30, 2019

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I understand the need for creating getter and setter points for LiveData in the ViewModel. However, I am looking to understand how the get() syntax works in Kotlin.

ie:

val isRealtime: LiveData<Boolean>
get() = _isRealtime
private val _isRealtime = MutableLiveData<Boolean>()`

Here is a good explanation on Stackoverflow: How Does Android LiveData get() syntax work?

get() is not related to Android.

val isRealtime: LiveData<Boolean>
get() = _isRealtime

Here, get() is overriding the automatically-generated Kotlin getter function for the isRealtime property. So, instead of returning its own value, it returns the value of _isRealtime.
Personally, I recommend simpler syntax:

private val _isRealtime = MutableLiveData<Boolean>()
val isRealtime: LiveData<Boolean> = _isRealtime

The objective of either of these is to keep the mutability private, so consumers of this class do not accidentally update the MutableLiveData themselves.

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Adam Hurwitz
Adam Hurwitz

Written by Adam Hurwitz

An account about nothing | Researcher and product consultant

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