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Jay Tillu
Jay Tillu

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How Kotlin provides 100% interoperability with Java?

“Kotlin is 100% interoperable with java”

When you first searched about Kotlin in every blog post, community talk or on YouTube as well, if the talk is about Kotlin then this term is definitely on everyone’s list that Kotlin is 100% interoperable with java.

Let’s see what that means and how things internally work.

Interoperability means the ability of Computer System or software to exchange and make use of information. The same concept applies for programming languages, means the ability of two languages for communicating and sharing information with each other such as functions, classes, and other data.

Kotlin is 100% interoperable with java means whenever two java and kotlin files exist together they can share data with each other.

While designing interoperability in kotlin, JetBrains makes major emphasis on Kotlin’s interaction with existing Java code. The team makes sure that kotlin can easily and completely interact with existing Java code. So that it can become easy for Java developers to migrate their Java project to Kotlin. There is also an automatic java-to-Kotlin converter in major IDEs for simplifies migration from Java to Kotlin.

How Does Interoperability work behind the scenes?


As we all know Kotlin is JVM based language just like Java. So just like Java’s compiler, Kotlin compiler also creates a byte code and that byte code can run on JVM. Which is exactly equivalent to the byte code which is generated by Java compiler.

Whenever two-byte code files run on JVM, due to their equivalent nature they can communicate with each other and that’s how interoperability is established in kotlin for Java. And makes Kotlin 100% interoperable with Java.

So, guys, this is all about Kotlin’s interoperability.

Please let me know if I missed something. Till then Keep Coding, Keep Loving.

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