How to get a platform-specific newline in Kotlin Multiplatform?

Question

I am seeking a function which returns a platform-specific newline string. I'm aware of System.lineSeparator(), which is only available in Kotlin/JVM, but there's a need for a multi-platform equivalent.

I'm also aware of the expect/actual approach, but I'm searching for a shorter way. (Maybe a function in the standard library?)

Dynah

As far as I know, there is no such thing in kotlin stdlib. Maybe, some part of kotlin.text library might be used to create something similar manually. If you think that something like that would be useful, consider filing a feature request at kotl.in/issue. – Legwork

Answer 1

Something like this should do the trick:

val newLine = "\n"

Aliber

How is that platform-specific? (That means it should return e.g. \n on Unix-like OSs, \r\n on Windows, &c.) – Gravimetric

If you write this in common module, it should get translated to correct value on respective platform. No need for expect-actual for this. – Aliber

How would it get translated? – Gravimetric

By the Kotlin native compiler when it builds native code for respective platform. – Aliber

@Gravimetric This answer is actually partially correct. In Kotlin/Native, println calls a C++ function konan::consoleWriteUtf8("\n", 1) and the single character '\n' gets translated on Windows to \r\n deep inside the C++ standard library (or the C library that the C++ library calls). Granted, it ought to be much more detailed. – Need

To be clear, the val newLine = "\n" is only good if you write it in the Native modules, not the common module. For example, in Kotlin JVM this won't work; you need System.lineSeparator(). I don't know about JS. – Need

See my full answer to a similar question: https://mcmap.net/q/1630312/-in-kotlin-multiplatform-how-can-i-read-line-separator-39-s-length – Need