Explain the differences between launch, async, and runBlocking functions in Kotlin coroutines.

In Kotlin, coroutines allow writing asynchronous code more simply. Here are the differences between launch, async, and runBlocking:

• launch — starts a new coroutine that runs in parallel but does not return a result. Used for background tasks where the result is not needed.

• async — starts a coroutine that returns a Deferred<T>, which is a promise of a result. Allows obtaining the result via await(). Used when you need to get the result of an asynchronous operation.

• runBlocking — blocks the current thread until the coroutine completes. Usually used in the main function or tests to run coroutines from synchronous code.

Example:

fun main() = runBlocking {
    launch {
        println("Coroutine without result launched")
    }

    val deferred = async {
        delay(1000)
        return@async "Result"
    }

    println("Waiting for result: ${deferred.await()}")
}

Here, runBlocking launches coroutines and waits for their completion, launch starts a task without a result, async — with a result.