Boolean Infix Functions and Short Circuiting

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Boolean Infix Functions and Short Circuiting

January 18, 2024

The two ways to perform boolean operations in Kotlin are the operators && and || or using the infix functions and and or. They are mostly the same, but there is one key difference. The operators perform short circuiting but the infix functions do not.

Short Circuiting is an optimization where the right hand boolean operands is not evaluated if the result is known from the left operand (e.g. the left hand operand is true for || or false for &&). For a better visual, see the example below.

fun isTrue() { println("Eval True"); return true }
fun isFalse() { println("Eval False"); return false }

val result = isTrue() || isFalse
// prints 
// Eval True

val result2 = isTrue() or isFalse()
// prints 
// Eval True
// Eval False

Neither of these two approaches are right or wrong, but it is important to know the difference. The best takeaway is that boolean expressions should have no side-effects, that way the operators and infix functions are functionally the same. Until next time, thanks!

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