In Dart, a late variable is a way to declare a variable without initializing it immediately, but you promise to initialize it before you use it. It's a way to tell Dart that you will assign a value to the variable later, and Dart allows this delayed initialization.
Here's a simple explanation:
dartCopy codevoid main() {
// Declare a late variable
late String lateVariable;
// Later in the code, initialize the variable
lateVariable = "Hello, Dart!";
// Now you can use the initialized variable
print(lateVariable); // Output: "Hello, Dart!"
}
In this example, we declare a late String lateVariable;
without assigning it a value immediately. Later in the code, we assign the value "Hello, Dart!" to lateVariable
. The late
keyword indicates that Dart shouldn't enforce immediate initialization but trusts you to initialize it before using it.
It's important to note that if you try to use a late
variable before initializing it, or if you forget to initialize it altogether, it will result in a runtime error. So, use late
variables responsibly and make sure to initialize them before accessing their values.