Kotlin Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide, First Edition

String Templates

You have seen that a string can be built up with the values of variables and even the results of conditional expressions. Kotlin features string templates to aid in this common need and, again, make your code more readable. Templates allow you to include the value of a variable inside a string’s quotation marks. Update the player status display code to use string templates, as shown below:

Listing 3.11  Using a string template (Game.kt)

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    ...
    // Player status
    println(name + " " + healthStatus)
    println("$name $healthStatus")
}

You added the values of name and healthStatus to the player status display string by prefixing each with $. This special symbol indicates to Kotlin that ...