Overview of Kotlin Coroutines

Introduction

Kotlin coroutines make it easier to write asynchronous code for Android applications. It’s a lightweight solution that reduces memory leaks and comes with native Android Jetpack integration. We can execute long-running tasks on an I/O thread without blocking the application’s UI thread.

Popular programming languages support the async and await paradigms. Coroutines provide a similar asynchronous code execution capability by suspending functions. Suspending a function allows us to execute a long-running operation without blocking the thread. The function execution can be paused and resumed at a later time.

Coroutines features

The usage of Kotlin coroutines is recommended for asynchronous operation on Android. Some of its key features are:

• It comes bundled as a lightweight library that provides function suspension and allows us to perform concurrent operations.

• It allows us to execute operations within a scope that reduces the probability of memory leaks.

• It has built-in support for canceling requests and integrates well with Android Jetpack Components.

Examples

Let’s consider a sample method that checks whether a number is a prime number.