What is the difference between fold and reduce in Kotlin and when to use which?
Hi! I recently started learning Kotlin and came across the fold and reduce functions when working with collections. I understand that both are used for aggregating elements, but I can't quite grasp the difference.
Here's an example that confused me. Let's say I have a list of numbers:
```kotlin
val numbers = listOf(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
```
I can calculate the sum using reduce:
```kotlin
val sumReduce = numbers.reduce { acc, i -> acc + i }
println(sumReduce) // 15
```
And using fold:
```kotlin
val sumFold = numbers.fold(0) { acc, i -> acc + i }
println(sumFold) // 15
```
The result is the same. But I noticed that in fold I pass an initial value (0), while in reduce I don't. What happens if the list is empty? I tried:
```kotlin
val emptyList = listOf()
// val result = emptyList.reduce { ac
No answers yet.
Log in to leave an answer
Blogs