The method partition is available in Kotlin for arrays and iterable objects to split it into two lists. We pass a predicate lambda function to the partition method. The predicate should return either true or false based on a condition for each element from the array or iterable. The return result is a Pair instance where the first element is a List object with all elements that returned true from the predicate. The second element in the Pair object contains all elements for which the predicate returned false. As a String can be seen as an iterable of characters we can also use partition on a String instance.

In the following example code we use partition on different objects:

// Create an infinite sequence of increasing numbers.
val numbers = generateSequence(0) { i -> i + 1 }

// We take the first 20 numbers from our sequence and
// partition it to two pairs.
// First element of the pair is a list of all even numbers,
// second element is the list of all odd numbers.
// We use destructurizing to assign the pair values to
// variables even and odd.
val (even, odd) = numbers.take(20)
    .partition { n -> n % 2 == 0}

assert(even == listOf(0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18))
assert(odd == listOf(1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19))


// Sample map with data.
val data = mapOf("language" to "Java", "username" to "mrhaki", "age" to 49)

// We can also use partition on the entries of the map.
val (stringValues, nonStringValues) = data.entries.partition { entry -> entry.value is String }

assert(stringValues.associate { it.toPair() } == mapOf("language" to "Java", "username" to "mrhaki"))
assert(nonStringValues.associate { it.toPair() } == mapOf("age" to 49))


// Sample string to use with partition.
val s = "Kotlin kandy!"

// We can also use partition on a string where
// the predicate is applied for each character.
val (letters, others) = s.partition(Char::isLetter)

assert(letters == "Kotlinkandy")
assert(others == " !")

Written with Kotlin 1.7.20.

Original post

shadow-left