What s the difference between and in Kotlin

Question

Kotlin is new to me. What makes these two different from one another? and ? below is the code.

Two snippets are provided below: the first use!! for another having an mCurrentDataset? identical variable.

if(!mCurrentDataset!!.load(mDataSetString.get(mCurrentDataSelectionIndex), STORAGE_TYPE.STORAGE_APPRESOURCE))
{
    Log.d("MyActivity","Failed to load data.")
    return false
}

---

if(!mCurrentDataset?.load(mDataSetString.get(mCurrentDataSelectionIndex), STORAGE_TYPE.STORAGE_APPRESOURCE)!!)
{
    Log.d("MyActivity","Failed to load data.")
    return false
}

Answer 1

As it said in kotlin reference !! is an option for NPE-lovers :)

a!!.length

will return a non-null value of a.length or throw a NullPointerException if a is null:

val a: String? = null
print(a!!.length) // >>> NPE: trying to get length of null

---

a?.length

returns a.length if a is not null, and null otherwise:

val a: String? = null
print(a?.length) // >>> null is printed in the console

---

To sum up:

+------------+--------------------+---------------------+----------------------+
| a: String? |           a.length |           a?.length |           a!!.length |
+------------+--------------------+---------------------+----------------------+
|      "cat" | Compile time error |                   3 |                    3 |
|       null | Compile time error |                null | NullPointerException |
+------------+--------------------+---------------------+----------------------+