Elegantly check for null before method call

Question

How do I elegantly check for null before calling a method on an object? This is how I do it right now:

var title = document.querySelector('title');
title = title ? title.text : '';

Null Object pattern would be nice in this case but I don't own the document.querySelector code.

• Shmiddty: var title = document.querySelector('title') || {text:''};
• Joseph: @Shmiddty that's wrong. The OP wanted to get either title text or blank. Your code returns either the title object or an object with a property text with a blank string.
• FizzyTea: @JosephtheDreamer That's a replacement for the first line, not the second. Then title.text works as the OP expects.
• Shmiddty: @JosephtheDreamer what Fizzy said. OP could do this: ...................................................................... var title = (document.querySelector('title') || {text:''}).text;
• Joseph: @Shmiddty I got it. I just preserved the comment for future clarification.

Answer 1

You can do this:

var title = document.querySelector('title') || {text:''};

then just use title.text in-line.

Alternatively, you could use this one-liner:

var title = (document.querySelector('title') || {text:''}).text;