Calling kotlin functions which are keywords in java from java?

Question

Since new is not a keyword in kotlin, i can have the following function in kotlin.

fun new(): String {     return "just returns some string" } 

But i am unable to call this function from java since new is a keyword in java. I would like to know if there is some alias for this function in java realm. I did not find any intellij suggestions that might be a possible alias to this function.

Edit 1:

I have written the following code in kotlin:

fun new(): String {     return "just returns some string" }  fun main(args:Array<String>){     new() } 

And I had a look at the java bytecode. It was as follows.

// ================MainKt.class ================= // class version 50.0 (50) // access flags 0x31 public final class MainKt {     // access flags 0x19   public final static new()Ljava/lang/String;   @Lorg/jetbrains/annotations/NotNull;() // invisible    L0     LINENUMBER 2 L0     LDC "just returns some string"     ARETURN    L1     MAXSTACK = 1     MAXLOCALS = 0    // access flags 0x19   public final static main([Ljava/lang/String;)V     @Lorg/jetbrains/annotations/NotNull;() // invisible, parameter 0    L0     ALOAD 0     LDC "args"     INVOKESTATIC kotlin/jvm/internal/Intrinsics.checkParameterIsNotNull (Ljava/lang/Object;Ljava/lang/String;)V    L1     LINENUMBER 6 L1     INVOKESTATIC MainKt.new ()Ljava/lang/String;     POP    L2     LINENUMBER 7 L2     RETURN    L3     LOCALVARIABLE args [Ljava/lang/String; L0 L3 0     MAXSTACK = 2     MAXLOCALS = 1    @Lkotlin/Metadata;(mv={1, 1, 6}, bv={1, 0, 1}, k=2, d1={"\u0000\u0014\n\u0000\n\u0002\u0010\u0002\n\u0000\n\u0002\u0010\u0011\n\u0002\u0010\u000e\n\u0002\u0008\u0003\u001a\u0019\u0010\u0000\u001a\u00020\u00012\u000c\u0010\u0002\u001a\u0008\u0012\u0004\u0012\u00020\u00040\u0003\u00a2\u0006\u0002\u0010\u0005\u001a\u0006\u0010\u0006\u001a\u00020\u0004\u00a8\u0006\u0007"}, d2={"main", "", "args", "", "", "([Ljava/lang/String;)V", "new", "production sources for module Srinivas"})   // compiled from: Main.kt }   // ================META-INF/production sources for module Srinivas.kotlin_module =================     MainKt 

And here is the bytecode decompiled to java:

import kotlin.Metadata; import kotlin.jvm.internal.Intrinsics; import org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull;  @Metadata(    mv = {1, 1, 6},    bv = {1, 0, 1},    k = 2,    d1 = {"\u0000\u0014\n\u0000\n\u0002\u0010\u0002\n\u0000\n\u0002\u0010\u0011\n\u0002\u0010\u000e\n\u0002\b\u0003\u001a\u0019\u0010\u0000\u001a\u00020\u00012\f\u0010\u0002\u001a\b\u0012\u0004\u0012\u00020\u00040\u0003¢\u0006\u0002\u0010\u0005\u001a\u0006\u0010\u0006\u001a\u00020\u0004¨\u0006\u0007"},    d2 = {"main", "", "args", "", "", "([Ljava/lang/String;)V", "new", "production sources for module Srinivas"} ) public final class MainKt {    @NotNull    public static final String new() {       return "just returns some string";    }     public static final void main(@NotNull String[] args) {       Intrinsics.checkParameterIsNotNull(args, "args");       new();    } } 

It appears that writing a function named new is a valid java bytecode. But javac is not letting me compile the code. Is there some annotation or compiler flag I can enable to get javac to compile the java file with call to this function.

Answer 1

For these sorts of problems, you can use the @JvmName annotation.

@JvmName("neww") fun new(): String {     return "just returns some string" } 

The name you pass to it will be the name that you can use to refer to the method from Java:

String s = something.neww(); 

In general, you're probably better off not using Java keywords as Kotlin identifiers if you need to interop with Java code.