Asserting Kotlin Image Processing (KSP) Alpha

Posted by Ting-Yuan Huang‎, Software program Engineer and David Winer, Product Supervisor

Android image

Immediately we’re excited to announce the alpha of Kotlin Image Processing (KSP), an all-new software for constructing light-weight compiler plugins in Kotlin. KSP gives comparable performance to KAPT, nevertheless it’s as much as 2x quicker, gives direct entry to Kotlin compiler options, and is being developed with multiplatform compatibility in thoughts.

KSP is appropriate with the Kotlin 1.4.30 launch and onwards. You’ll be able to take a look at the open supply code and documentation within the KSP GitHub repository.

Why KSP?

The #1 request we hear from Kotlin builders is to make construct speeds quicker. Many builders iterate on and deploy apps dozens of instances a day, so having to take a seat round ready for a gradual construct could be very time consuming. One of many largest challenges with compiling Kotlin code is that Kotlin doesn’t have a local annotation processing system. Annotation processors like Room are ubiquitous on Android and depend on Java annotation processing compatibility via the Kotlin Annotation Processing Software (KAPT). KAPT could be gradual to run, although, because it requires producing intermediate Java stubs that may then be ingested by the Java annotation processing system.

When designing KSP, we thought of what annotation processing would appear like for Kotlin if we constructed it from the bottom up. KSP gives a strong and but easy API for parsing Kotlin code straight, dramatically decreasing the construct pace tax imposed by KAPT’s stub technology. Certainly, preliminary benchmarks with the Room library present that KSP is roughly 2x quicker than KAPT.

Getting began

To see what KSP seems like in motion, obtain the KSP playground project from GitHub. In it you’ll discover:

  • Library: A toy test-processor library that implements the builder sample as a KSP processor
  • Consuming mission: A workload listing that exhibits use the builder processor in a real-world Kotlin mission

The entire logic for implementing the builder is in test-processor — for the buyer (workload), the one distinction between utilizing KAPT and KSP is a two-line construct file change:

That is the aim of KSP: most Android app builders don’t want to fret about its internals; aside from this one line change, a library that helps KSP seems identical to a standard annotation processor, solely it’s as much as 2x quicker. That stated, utilizing KAPT and KSP in the identical module will probably decelerate your construct initially, so throughout this alpha interval, it’s best to make use of KSP and KAPT in separate modules.

As extra annotation processors undertake KSP, we anticipate most of your modules to have the ability to use KSP as a close to drop-in alternative for KAPT. For now, you’ll be able to take a look at which annotation processors supply KSP assist in this table. If a library that helps or is implementing assist for KSP is lacking from the desk, please submit a pull request along with your suggestion!

If you’re an creator of a library that at present makes use of annotation processing, yow will discover extra info on make your library appropriate with KSP within the quickstart and README guides.

For library authors, now that KSP is in alpha, it’s a good time to start out trying carefully at it and giving us suggestions on the API within the KSP issue tracker. As well as, we recurrently submit launch updates within the #ksp channel on Kotlin Slack. Because the developer preview final June, we’ve closed over 100 bugs and points, dozens of which have been reported by the superb neighborhood of Kotlin library builders.

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