minOf

minOf is a function in Kotlin's standard library that returns the smallest element among given values or among the elements of a collection, according to a defined ordering. It is the counterpart to maxOf and is used to simplify comparisons without writing explicit if statements. The function provides several overloads: a two-value variant for comparable types, an overload that accepts a comparator, and versions that operate on iterables or arrays of values.

When called with two values that are comparable, minOf(a, b) returns the value with the smaller natural order. If a comparator is supplied, minOf uses that comparator to determine the minimum. When given an iterable (such as a List) or an array, minOf(iterable) returns the smallest element according to the natural ordering of the element type, or according to the provided comparator. If the input is empty, some overloads throw an exception, though the standard library also offers minOrNull to return null in that case.

Examples: minOf(3, 7) returns 3. minOf("kotlin", "java") returns "java" since it is lexicographically smaller. minOf(listOf(5, 1, 9)) returns 1. minOf(listOf("apple","pear","banana")) returns "apple".

See also: maxOf, min, and the related minOrNull for safely handling empty inputs.