How to Get SimpleName in Kotlin

1. Get SimpleName in Kotlin Using KClass
2. Get SimpleName in Kotlin Using ::class.simpleName
3. Get SimpleName in Kotlin Using ::class.java.simpleName
4. Create Our Class and Get Its SimpleName

Jave’s getSimpleName() method allows us to retrieve the SimpleName of the class of an object. We can use the method in the following way to get a class’s name.

String var = objectName.getClass().getSimpleName();

But when we try to convert this code to Kotlin and run it to get a class’s name, it throws an error.

So how do we get the SimpleName in Kotlin? This post introduces equivalent ways to get a class’s SimpleName in Kotlin.

Get SimpleName in Kotlin Using KClass

The easiest way to get a class’s SimpleName in Kotlin is using KClass. The KClass holds references to Kotlin’s classes and offers introspection capabilities.

We can use the ::class reference to use the KClass to retrieve the SimpleName of a class.

Now, to get the SimpleName, there are two ways. We can either use ::class.simpleName or we can use ::class.java.simpleName. We will go through both ways.

Get SimpleName in Kotlin Using ::class.simpleName

To retrieve the class’s SimpleName, we need to use the ::class.simpleName along with the variable or object whose class’s name we want to get. Here’s an example of the same:

fun main() {
    val v = "Android programming!"
    println(v::class.simpleName)
}

Output:

Run Code

Get SimpleName in Kotlin Using ::class.java.simpleName

Here, we only need to add the word java. It does the same thing as class.simpleName and gets the SimpleName of the Kotlin class.

fun main() {
    val v = "Android programming!"
    println(v::class.java.simpleName)
}

Output:

Run Code

Create Our Class and Get Its SimpleName

We can also create our own class and use KClass to get its SimpleName. We might need to get the class SimpleName we created while working on large projects.

If we are working on a project with multiple programmers, we might need to get the class SimpleName the other programmer might have built to use it for running different methods.

Here’s an example code to demonstrate the use of ::class.simpleName in a class we define.

class exampleClass {
    private var v: String = "Kotlin"
}
fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    val ob1 = exampleClass() // Object ob1 of exampleClass
    println(ob1::class.simpleName)
}

Output:

Run Code