Kotlin Ranges

last modified January 29, 2024

This article shows how to work with ranges in Kotlin.

A range is a succession of values between defined lower and upper limits.

A Kotlin range is created with the .. operator or with the rangeTo and downTo functions. Kotlin ranges are inclusive by default; that is, 1..3 creates a range of 1, 2, 3 values. The distance between two values is defined by the step; the default step is 1.

Kotlin range creation

The following example shows how to create simple ranges in Kotlin.

KotlinRangeCreate.kt

package com.zetcode

fun main() {

for (i in 1..30)
    print("$i ")

println()

for (i in 30 downTo 1)
    print("$i ")

println()

for (i in 1.rangeTo(30))
    print("$i ")

println()

for (i in 30.downTo(1))
    print("$i ")

println()

}

The example creates four ranges of values.

for (i in 1..30) print("$i “)

The 1..30 creates a succession of values from 1 to 30, including the bounds. We use the for loop to go through the range.

for (i in 30 downTo 1) print("$i “)

With the downTo keyword, we create a succession of values descending from 30 to 1.

for (i in 1.rangeTo(30)) print("$i “)

The rangeTo function creates a range of values between the defined bounds; it is an equivalent of the .. operator.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Kotlin range of characters

We can create a range of characters in Kotlin.

KotlinRangeChars.kt

package com.zetcode

fun main() {

for (c in 'a'..'k')
    print("$c ")

println()

for (c in 'k' downTo 'a')
    print("$c ")

}

The example creates two ranges of letters in ascending and descending orders.

for (c in ‘a’..‘k’) print("$c “)

We create and print ‘a’ to ‘k’ characters.

for (c in ‘k’ downTo ‘a’) print("$c “)

We create and print ‘k’ to ‘a’ characters.

a b c d e f g h i j k k j i h g f e d c b a

Kotlin range forEach

We can use the forEach function to traverse the range of values.

KotlinRangeForEach.kt

package com.zetcode

fun main() {

(1..5).forEach(::println)

(1..5).reversed().forEach { e -> print("$e ") }

}

The example uses the forEach function to traverse the ranges.

(1..5).forEach(::println)

With the forEach function, we print all the values from range 1..5.

(1..5).reversed().forEach { e -> print("$e “) }

In this line, we reverse the range with reversed and loop over the range with forEach.

1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1

Kotlin range iterator

We can use the classic iterator to loop over a range in Kotlin.

KotlinRangeIterator.kt

package com.zetcode

fun main() {

val chars = ('a'..'f')
val it = chars.iterator()

while (it.hasNext()) {

    val e = it.next()
    println(e)
}

}

The example uses an iterator to loop over a range of characters.

val chars = (‘a’..‘f’) val it = chars.iterator()

We create a range of characters and an iterator from this range.

while (it.hasNext()) {

val e = it.next()
println(e)

}

In a while loop, we go over the elements of the range. The hasNext method checks if there is a next element in the range and the next method returns the next element in the range.

a b c d e f

Kotlin range step

With the step keyword, we can define a step between the values of a range.

KotlinRangeStep.kt

package com.zetcode

fun main() {

for (e in 1..20 step 2) {
    print("$e ")
}

println()

for (e in 1..20 step 5) {
    print("$e ")
}

println()

println((1..10 step 2).last)
println((1..10 step 3).first)
println((1..10 step 4).step)

println()

}

The example shows how to use step in Kotlin ranges.

for (e in 1..20 step 2) { print("$e “) }

The for loop goes through the values of a range. The range has step 2.

println((1..10 step 2).last) println((1..10 step 3).first) println((1..10 step 4).step)

A Kotlin range contains last, first, and step attributes, which return the last, first values and the step.

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 1 6 11 16 9 1 4

Kotlin range filter, reduce, map

Kotlin ranges contain filter, reduce, and map operations.

KotlinRangeFilterReduceMap.kt

package com.zetcode

fun main() {

val rnums = (1..15)

println(rnums)

val r = rnums.filter { e -> e % 2 == 0 }
println(r)

val r2 = rnums.reduce { total, next -> next * 2 - 1 }
println(r2)

var r3 = rnums.map { e -> e * 5 }
println(r3)

}

The example applies filtering, reduction, and mapping on a range.

val r = rnums.filter { e -> e % 2 == 0 }

With the filter function we filter out even numbers. Even numbers can be divided by two without a remainder. The operation returns a list of values.

val r2 = rnums.reduce { total, next -> next * 2 - 1 }

The reduction operation applies the given expression on each of the range elements to produce a single value.

var r3 = rnums.map { e -> e * 5 }

The mapping operation applies the given operation on each of the elements. The mapping returns a list of modified values.

1..15 [2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14] 29 [5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75]

Kotlin range min, max, sum, average

Kotlin ranges contain predefined reduction operations, including min, max, sum, and average

KotlinRangeMinMaxSumAvg.kt

package com.zetcode

fun main() {

val r = (1..10)

println(r.min())
println(r.max())
println(r.sum())    
println(r.average())

}

The example prints the minimum, maximum, summation, and average of a range of 1..10 values.

1 10 55 5.5

Source

Kotlin ranges and progressions

In this article we have covered Kotlin ranges.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar, and I am a passionate programmer with extensive programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. To date, I have authored over 1,400 articles and 8 e-books. I possess more than ten years of experience in teaching programming.

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