I know this is so you can chain ifNotNull and otherwise, but the signature looks odd nonetheless. The signature of ifNotNull is a bit odd since it runs a block that returns nothing and ifNotNull returns the raw object on which it is called instead. isNullOrEmpty - Kotlin Programming Language Common JVM JS Native Version 1.8 kotlin-stdlib / llections / isNullOrEmpty isNullOrEmpty Common JVM JS Native 1. In a more functional style, functions are chained and return transformed values at each stage. As mentioned above, the block does something and returns nothing. I also think your functions are not very 'functional' because they carry their action strictly by side effects. Another advantage is that you can use an if-else either to just run a code block that does something and returns nothing like your functions do, or you can instead use if-else as an expression and return some value. It's just easier to read a plain if-else than other Kotlin solutions, such as this solution using the elvis operator. See furthermore this linked answer from another question. The answer is to just use a plain if-else in such cases. Null reference has type kotlin.Nothing and is, by definition, the only value of this type. There is this stackoverflow question: How to run code if object is null? The keyword null denotes the null reference, which represents an absence of a value and is a valid value only for nullable types. I like answer a lot, which is that basically that the functions you wrote are not necessary.

Kotlin is null