Difference between 'setValue' and 'value' in Kotlin 4.1 MutableLiveData?

Question

I'm learning android studio 4.1 using Kotlin from a 2020 book. In one of the examples they are using a MutableLiveData object. When I try to use code completion with this line: result.setValue(value.toFloat()*usd_to_eu_rate) the only option is the setter result.value tough result.setValue does work just fine. So I was wondering what the difference is between the two and why value does not show up in code compleation.

Answer 1

Thanks to this link - kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/java-interop.html#getters-and-setters - provided by @IR42 and other information by other contributors whos comments were unfortunately deleted I found my answer:

MutableLiveData is a Java class and Kotlin will infer a property when the Java class has methods that follow the Java conventions for getters and setters (no-argument methods with names starting with get and single-argument methods with names starting with set)

Code completion will not suggest the Java getter methods (i.e. getValue and setValue) but it will suggest the Kotlin inferred property (i.e. value)

You can still use the Java getter/setter methods but this is discouraged.