EP 51: Null Object Pattern in C#

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Today, we will explore the details of the fourth design pattern. In our previous newsletters, we delved into the concepts of Decorator, Adapter and Facade patterns.

What is Null Object Pattern ?

This pattern says that when we come up with a situation where we are dealing with null value of some object, don’t throw NULL EXCEPTION. Rather return a object representing NULL value which acts as default value.

When we should use it ?

In .NET, you might consider using the Null Object pattern in the following situations:

• When designing interfaces or abstract classes, you may want to provide default implementations for certain methods. Instead of returning null for methods that return objects, you can return a Null Object instance that provides default behavior.
• In code where you frequently check for null references before calling methods or accessing properties, using the Null Object pattern can help simplify the code by eliminating these null checks.
• If your codebase has many conditional statements to handle null references, employing the Null Object pattern can help reduce the complexity of such logic by providing a default behavior that is automatically used when dealing with null objects.
• Using Null Object implementations can facilitate unit testing by providing concrete objects instead of null…