Object in Kotlin and the Singleton Pattern

Working With Companion Objects

To create an Intent to launch ShoppingCartActivity with, you’ll define a companion object.

Companion objects are similar to standalone singleton objects like ShoppingCart but with one key difference: The companion object belongs to its containing class.

This will be important when you learn how to access the companion objects in the next section. For now, you’ll focus on defining the companion object.

Defining the Companion Object

To define the companion object, open ShoppingCartActivity and find the // TODO just before the last closing bracket. Replace // TODO with the following:

companion object {
  fun newIntent(context: Context): Intent {
    return Intent(context, ShoppingCartActivity::class.java)
  }
}

If Android Studio prompts you to do so, import android.content.Context and android.content.Intent for Context and Intent, respectively.

Congratulations, you’ve defined a companion object!

Like the singleton you defined earlier, the companion object also contains a public function — in this case, newIntent(). The companion object is also a single instance shared throughout your project.

Unlike in ShoppingCart, the companion object belongs to its containing class. So to access the companion object, you need to reference it by the name of its containing class, not its direct name like you do with a singleton object. You’ll learn how to do this in the next section.

Accessing the Companion Object to Start the Activity

At this point, you’ve laid the groundwork for shopping. You’ve defined a companion object that provides an Intent to open the shopping activity when a user clicks Go to Cart. But you have yet to start the ShoppingCartActivity.

To start it, simply do the following:

1. Open MainActivity and find goToCart().
2. Replace // TODO with the following code:

val intent = ShoppingCartActivity.newIntent(this)
startActivity(intent)

Note that you’re referencing the companion object by using the name of its containing class: ShoppingCartActivity. You’re also using the Intent, which the companion object created, to start the activity.

Now, build and run. Then, click Go to Cart and you’ll see that the app will show a new, empty screen:

But where are all those products you had in your cart? Don’t worry. You’ll work on showing that screen next.

Displaying Products in the Shopping Cart

Next, you’ll build a shopping cart screen with three components:

• A TextView with the total price of the selected products.
• A list with products the user added to the cart.
• A Clear Cart button that will, you guessed it, clear the shopping cart.

First, you’ll use a Java class to calculate the cart’s total price. In the process, you’ll learn how the interoperability between Kotlin singletons and Java works.

Accessing Kotlin Singletons with Java to Calculate Price

Start by creating a new Java class to perform those calculations using the following steps:

1. In Android Studio, go to File ▸ New ▸ Java Class.
2. Name the class ShoppingCartCalculator and select Class.
3. Press Enter, then OK

Android Studio will create a ShoppingCartCalculator Java class file. Next, add the following function before the closing bracket:

Integer calculateTotalFromShoppingCart() {
  List<Product> products = ShoppingCart.INSTANCE.getProducts();
  int totalPriceCents = 0;
  for (Product product : products) {
    totalPriceCents += product.getPriceCents();
  }

  return totalPriceCents;
}

The function above uses ShoppingCart.INSTANCE to access the singleton instance and then calculates the total by adding the cost of all the products in the cart. This is different than using the singleton in Kotlin where you don’t need to use INSTANCE.

While the function above works, you can also clean it up a little by using @JvmStatic, like so:

After you’ve added the annotation, the products declaration should look like this:

• Open ShoppingCart.
• Find var products.
• Add @JvmStatic to the line above the products declaration.

  @JvmStatic
  var products: List = emptyList()
    private set
  

@JvmStatic
var products: List = emptyList()
  private set

Now, you can remove the INSTANCE when referencing the products. To do this, delete INSTANCE from ShoppingCartCalculator.java. The function should now look like this:

Integer calculateTotalFromShoppingCart() {
  // Removed INSTANCE below. Rest is identical:
  List products = ShoppingCart.getProducts();
  int totalPriceCents = 0;
  for (Product product : products) {
    totalPriceCents += product.getPriceCents();
  }

  return totalPriceCents;
}

In Java, using @JvmStatic effectively transforms the singleton instance property into a static field in the ShoppingCart class.

In other words, in Java, what used to be inside an object called ShoppingCart.INSTANCE is now a top-level static field in ShoppingCart. You can use the trick you learned earlier in this tutorial to inspect the equivalent Java code for ShoppingCart to see how this works in action:

public final class ShoppingCart {
   @NotNull
   private static List products;
   @NotNull
   public static final ShoppingCart INSTANCE;
   // ...
}

Showing Products in the Shopping Cart

You’ll need to connect everything to show the products plus the total price in the shopping cart. To do this, you:

1. Open ShoppingCartActivity and find setupProducts().
2. Replace the entire body of this function with the following code:

// 1.
products = ShoppingCart.products

// 2.
val calculator = ShoppingCartCalculator()
val totalPriceCents = 
    calculator.calculateTotalFromShoppingCart()

// 3.
viewBinding.textTotalCartValue.text = 
    getString(R.string.text_total_price,
        totalPriceCents.asPriceString)

Here’s what the code above does:

1. Reads the products from ShoppingCart. Singletons are single instances throughout your app. Therefore, the code will contain all the products the user added to the shopping cart.
2. Creates an instance of the Java class you defined earlier, ShoppingCartCalculator, and uses it to calculate the total cost of all the items in the shopping cart. The Java method reads the Kotlin singleton internally and returns the total price. The same singleton object is read by both the Java code in the calculator and above in the Kotlin code.
3. Updates the TextView that displays the total price, converting it into a currency format using the Kotlin extension defined in StringUtils.kt.

Now, build and run. Test that it’s working by adding some products to the cart, then clicking Go to Cart. You’ll see a screen that shows the shopping cart with the products plus the total price:

You just learned how to get Java to access the data from a Kotlin singleton. Next, you’ll learn how to clear the products in the cart using the Clear Cart button.