How to create empty constructor for data class in Kotlin Android

I have 10+ variables declared in Kotlin data class, and I would like to create an empty constructor for it like how we typically do in Java.

Data class:

data class Activity(
    var updated_on: String,
    var tags: List<String>,
    var description: String,
    var user_id: List<Int>,
    var status_id: Int,
    var title: String,
    var created_at: String,
    var data: HashMap<*, *>,
    var id: Int,
    var counts: LinkedTreeMap<*, *>,
)

Expected usage:

val activity =  Activity();
activity.title = "New Computer"
sendToServer(activity)

But the data class requires all arguments to be passed while creating a constructor. How can we simplify this like the Java POJO class constructor?

val activity =  Activity(null,null,null,null,null,"New Computer",null,null,null,null)
sendToServer(activity)

You have 2 options here:

Assign a default value to each primary constructor parameter:

data class Activity(
    var updated_on: String = "",
    var tags: List<String> = emptyList(),
    var description: String = "",
    var user_id: List<Int> = emptyList(),
    var status_id: Int = -1,
    var title: String = "",
    var created_at: String = "",
    var data: HashMap<*, *> = hashMapOf<Any, Any>(),
    var id: Int = -1,
    var counts: LinkedTreeMap<*, *> = LinkedTreeMap<Any, Any>()
)

Declare a secondary constructor that has no parameters:

data class Activity(
    var updated_on: String,
    var tags: List<String>,
    var description: String,
    var user_id: List<Int>,
    var status_id: Int,
    var title: String,
    var created_at: String,
    var data: HashMap<*, *>,
    var id: Int,
    var counts: LinkedTreeMap<*, *>
) {
    constructor() : this("", emptyList(), 
                         "", emptyList(), -1, 
                         "", "", hashMapOf<Any, Any>(), 
                         -1, LinkedTreeMap<Any, Any>()
                         )
}

If you don't rely on copy or equals of the Activity class or don't use the autogenerated data class methods at all you could use regular class like so:

class ActivityDto {
    var updated_on: String = "",
    var tags: List<String> = emptyList(),
    var description: String = "",
    var user_id: List<Int> = emptyList(),
    var status_id: Int = -1,
    var title: String = "",
    var created_at: String = "",
    var data: HashMap<*, *> = hashMapOf<Any, Any>(),
    var id: Int = -1,
    var counts: LinkedTreeMap<*, *> = LinkedTreeMap<Any, Any>()
}

Not every DTO needs to be a data class and vice versa. In fact in my experience I find data classes to be particularly useful in areas that involve some complex business logic.

If you give default values to all the fields - empty constructor is generated automatically by Kotlin.

data class User(var id: Long = -1,
                var uniqueIdentifier: String? = null)

and you can simply call:

val user = User()

How to create empty constructor for data class in Kotlin Android

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