NullOutput is a example of NullObject pattern. It is not formally a Design Pattern by the GoF but it's a schema which appears frequently enough to

be a pattern. Furthermore it is a really good pattern in my opinion:

NullObject is not a GoF design pattern but a schema which appears frequently enough to be considered a pattern. It has the following benefits:

*the codein the clientissimple

*it reducesthe chance of null pointerexception

*less "if" => less test cases

*Client code issimplified

*Reducesthe chance of null pointerexceptions

*Fewer conditionals require less test cases

Every time you have a method which returns an object or null, you should return an object or a`NullObject`. With NullObject, you don't need

a statement like`if (!is_null($obj)) { $obj->callSomething(); }` anymore.

Methods that return an object or null should instead return an object or`NullObject`.`NullObject`s simplify boilerplate code such as`if (!is_null($obj)) { $obj->callSomething(); }` to just`$obj->callSomething();` by eliminating the conditional check in client code.