Interfaces

Interfaces in Kotlin are very similar to Java 8. They can contain declarations of abstract methods, as well as method implementations. What makes them different from abstract classes is that interfaces cannot store state. They can have properties but these need to be abstract or to provide accessor implementations.

An interface is defined using the keyword interface{: .keyword }

interface MyInterface {
    fun bar()
    fun foo() {
      // optional body
    }
}

Implementing Interfaces

A class or object can implement one or more interfaces

class Child : MyInterface {
   override fun bar() {
      // body
   }
}

Properties in Interfaces

You can declare properties in interfaces. A property declared in an interface can either be abstract, or it can provide implementations for accessors. Properties declared in interfaces can't have backing fields, and therefore accessors declared in interfaces can't reference them.

interface MyInterface {
    val property: Int // abstract

    val propertyWithImplementation: String
        get() = "foo"

    fun foo() {
        print(property)
    }
}

class Child : MyInterface {
    override val property: Int = 29
}

Resolving overriding conflicts

When we declare many types in our supertype list, it may appear that we inherit more than one implementation of the same method. For example

interface A {
  fun foo() { print("A") }
  fun bar()
}

interface B {
  fun foo() { print("B") }
  fun bar() { print("bar") }
}

class C : A {
  override fun bar() { print("bar") }
}

class D : A, B {
  override fun foo() {
    super<A>.foo()
    super<B>.foo()
  }
}

Interfaces A and B both declare functions foo() and bar(). Both of them implement foo(), but only B implements bar() (bar() is not marked abstract in A, because this is the default for interfaces, if the function has no body). Now, if we derive a concrete class C from A, we, obviously, have to override bar() and provide an implementation. And if we derive D from A and B, we don’t have to override bar(), because we have inherited only one implementation of it. But we have inherited two implementations of foo(), so the compiler does not know which one to choose, and forces us to override foo() and say what we want explicitly.