How can I get the name of a Kotlin property? - reflection

Question

I have the following function to access a property's delegate. It uses Kotlin reflection to get a property's name and Java reflection to get the field.
fun Any.getDelegate<T>(prop: KProperty<T>): Any {
return javaClass.getDeclaredField("${prop.name}\$delegate").let {
it.setAccessible(true)
it.get(this)
}
}
The method is used like this:
val delegate = a.getDelegate(A::b)
However, I would prefer to use it like this:
val delegate = a.b.delegate
The problem with the code above is getting the property name of a.b and getting the instance a from a.b. From what I know about Kotlin, this is probably not possible, however I'd like to see if I can clean up my function at all.
To give a bigger picture of what I'm trying do here's my complete code. I want an observable delegate to which I can add and remove observers using the delegate reference and without creating addition variables.
fun Any.addObservable<T>(prop: KProperty<T>, observer: (T) -> Unit) {
getObservableProperty(prop).observers.add(observer)
}
fun Any.getObservableProperty<T>(prop: KProperty<T>): ObservableProperty<T> {
return getDelegate(prop) as ObservableProperty<T>
}
fun Any.getDelegate<T>(prop: KProperty<T>): Any {
return javaClass.getDeclaredField("${prop.name}\$delegate").let {
it.setAccessible(true)
it.get(this)
}
}
class ObservableProperty<T>(
initialValue: T,
initialObservers: Array<(T) -> Unit> = emptyArray()) : ReadWriteProperty<Any?, T> {
private var value = initialValue
public val observers: MutableSet<(T) -> Unit> = initialObservers.toHashSet()
public override fun get(thisRef: Any?, desc: PropertyMetadata): T {
return value
}
public override fun set(thisRef: Any?, desc: PropertyMetadata, value: T) {
this.value = value
observers.forEach { it(value) }
}
}
class A() {
var b by ObservableProperty(0)
}
fun main(args: Array<String>) {
val a = A()
a.addObservable(A::b) {
println("b is now $it")
}
a.b = 1
a.b = 2
a.b = 3
}
Edit:
I just realized that the function also isn't strict because the property delegate field name is referenced by KProperty name, which doesn't require a strong reference to the enclosing class. Here's an example to demonstrate the problem:
class A() {
var foo by ObservableProperty(0)
}
class B() {
var foo by ObservableProperty(0)
}
fun main(args: Array<String>) {
val a = A()
a.addObservable(B::foo) {
println("b is now $it")
}
a.foo = 1
a.foo = 2
a.foo = 3
}
This compiles and runs without error because A::foo and B::foo both result in a field string of "foo$delegate.

Answer 1

Right now reflection is all we can do to get to the delegate object. We are designing a language feature to have direct access to delegate instance, but it's long way to go.

Answer 2

This is how you get the name of a Kotlin Property (although only with an instance of the class). This part will be useful to anyone arriving at this question purely based off its title.
class Stuff(val thing: String)
val stuff = Stuff("cool stuff")
val thingFieldName = "${stuff.thing}\$delegate"
// value of thingFieldName is now "thing"
In terms of getting the delegate itself easier, they say you can now do this:
class Foo {
var bar: String by ReactiveProperty<String>()
}
val foo = Foo()
val bar = foo.bar
val barDelegate = ... // foo.bar$delegate
See ticket.