What is the equivalent of Java static methods in Kotlin?

Question

There is no static keyword in Kotlin.

What is the best way to represent a static Java method in Kotlin?

Answer 1

Docs recommends to solve most of the needs for static functions with package-level functions. They are simply declared outside a class in a source code file. The package of a file can be specified at the beginning of a file with the package keyword.

Declaration

package foo

fun bar() = {}

Usage

import foo.bar

Alternatively

import foo.*

You can now call the function with:

bar()

or if you do not use the import keyword:

foo.bar()

If you do not specify the package the function will be accessible from the root.

If you only have experience with java, this might seem a little strange. The reason is that kotlin is not a strictly object-oriented language. You could say it supports methods outside of classes.

Edit: They have edited the documentation to no longer include the sentence about recommending package level functions. This is the original that was referred to above.