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title:
  - value: 'Revisiting the Null Object pattern in Drupal'
created:
  - value: '2024-08-30T00:00:00+00:00'
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  - value: '2025-05-11T09:00:07+00:00'
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      <p>The Null Object pattern is one of my favourite ways to DRY up code and reduce duplication.</p>

      <p>I wrote the <a href="https://www.drupal.org/project/system_user">System User module</a> for a client project a number of years ago, which also included the <a href="https://www.drupal.org/project/null_user">Null User module</a>.</p>

      <p>If no system user is found, it returns a null (empty) user instead that returns null or empty values by default.</p>

      <p>Today, <a href="https://x.com/opdavies/status/1829183673725284772">I posted</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@opdavies/113046773292848198">and tooted</a> a screenshot of some code from a side project I'm working on, which I realised would be another good time to use the Null User module.</p>

      <p>In the code, I search for a user with a given licence key.</p>

      <p>If a user is found, it is returned.</p>

      <p>If not, instead of returning FALSE or NULL, I return a null user object that I can treat the same as a real user.</p>

      <p>Now, when I create the node and assign an owner, I can just use <code>$account-&gt;id()</code> and it will always work if a user was found or not.</p>

      <p>This makes the code cleaner, simpler and easier to test and maintain.</p>

              
    format: full_html
    processed: |
      <p>The Null Object pattern is one of my favourite ways to DRY up code and reduce duplication.</p>

      <p>I wrote the <a href="https://www.drupal.org/project/system_user">System User module</a> for a client project a number of years ago, which also included the <a href="https://www.drupal.org/project/null_user">Null User module</a>.</p>

      <p>If no system user is found, it returns a null (empty) user instead that returns null or empty values by default.</p>

      <p>Today, <a href="https://x.com/opdavies/status/1829183673725284772">I posted</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@opdavies/113046773292848198">and tooted</a> a screenshot of some code from a side project I'm working on, which I realised would be another good time to use the Null User module.</p>

      <p>In the code, I search for a user with a given licence key.</p>

      <p>If a user is found, it is returned.</p>

      <p>If not, instead of returning FALSE or NULL, I return a null user object that I can treat the same as a real user.</p>

      <p>Now, when I create the node and assign an owner, I can just use <code>$account-&gt;id()</code> and it will always work if a user was found or not.</p>

      <p>This makes the code cleaner, simpler and easier to test and maintain.</p>

              
    summary: null
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