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Handling strings that contain characters with special meanings such as XML or HTML markup using Kotlin

   November 3, 2023
Kotlin @ Freshers.in

kotlinx Escaped Strings, introduced in Kotlin 1.5, are a powerful tool for handling strings that contain characters with special meanings, such as XML or HTML markup. These strings allow you to work with such content without worrying about escaping special characters manually. They enhance code readability and maintainability while ensuring your data remains intact.

Let’s start with a basic example. Suppose you want to create an HTML snippet that includes a title with special characters.

import kotlinx.html.*

fun main() {
    val title = "Kotlin & kotlinx"
    val html = createHTML().html {
        head {
            title { +title }
        }
        body {
            h1 { +title }
        }
    }
    println(html)
}

In this example, we’re using kotlinx.html to create an HTML structure. Notice how we include the title with special characters “&” without any manual escaping. kotlinx Escaped Strings take care of this for us.

Example

Let’s now consider a real-world scenario where you need to generate XML data. Assume you’re building an application that communicates with a REST API, and you want to send XML content.

import kotlinx.serialization.*
import kotlinx.serialization.xml.*
@Serializable
data class Person(val name: String, val age: Int)
fun main() {
    val person = Person("John & Jane", 30)
    val xmlString = Xml.encodeToString(Person.serializer(), person)
    println(xmlString)
}

In this example, we define a Person class and use kotlinx.serialization to serialize it to XML. Again, you’ll notice that the special character “&” in the name field is automatically escaped for us.

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