I'm trying to write an assert function that checks if a given object is of a type T:

@UseExperimental(ExperimentalContracts::class)

inline fun <reified T> assertIsInstance(value: Any?) {

    contract {

        returns() implies (value is T)

    }



    Assertions.assertThat(value).isInstanceOf(T::class.java)

}

The function uses AssertJ to do the concrete assertion but I'm willing to let the compiler know that after its execution, the value is of type T so that a smartcast is possible. It seems like this does not work because:

Error in contract description: references to type parameters are forbidden in contracts

Is there another way to achieve this behavior? What's the issue here? Will this eventually be possible?

(Using Kotlin v1.3)

At some point there were some (deeply technical) concerns regarding support of such constructions in an IDE, but it's possible that this limitation will be relaxed in the future.

This has been bugging me for a couple hours, especially since this is possible:

val x: Any = "string"

require(x is String)

val len = x.length

The compiler is clearly able to understand these, so this is likely a limitation of the contracts themselves.

I've spent a while now trying to come up with some workarounds. For reference:

@UseExperimental(ExperimentalContracts::class)

inline fun <reified T> assertIsInstance(value: Any?) {

    contract {

        returns() implies T::class.isInstance(value))

    }

    if(value !is T){

        throw java.lang.IllegalArgumentException("Incorrect type");

    }

}

"Unsupported construct"

@UseExperimental(ExperimentalContracts::class)

inline fun <reified T> assertIsInstance(value: Any?, condition: Boolean = value is T) {

    contract {

        returns() implies condition

    }

    if(!condition)

        throw IllegalArgumentException("Incorrect type");

}

Compiles, but doesn't enable smart cast. The original motivation behind that one was placing a boolean in front of the contract, but contracts need to be the first part of a function, which made that impossible. You might as well remove the contract; it's useless in this case.

This was my last try:

@UseExperimental(ExperimentalContracts::class)

inline fun assertIsInstance(value: Any?, cls: KClass<out Any>) {

    contract {

        returns() implies (cls.isInstance(value))

    }

    if(!cls.isInstance(value))

        throw IllegalArgumentException("");

}

Another "unsupported construct".

Somehow I ended up with this:

@UseExperimental(ExperimentalContracts::class)

inline fun assertIsInstance(value: Any?) {

    contract {

        returns() implies (value.hashCode() == 0)

    }

    if(value.hashCode() != 0)

        throw java.lang.IllegalArgumentException();

}

But this gives a new error: only references to parameters are allowed in contract description.

TL;DR:

It doesn't look like you can. Sneaking it in like I did in the second example doesn't trigger smart cast, and the rest don't work due to various compiler errors.

At least for now, there doesn't appear to be a way. You could of course open an issue in the Kotlin repo and ask for something like this, but for now, it doesn't appear to be possible.