What is the function of Auth::user() in Laravel and how does it handle returning the User class or null?

Auth::user() in Laravel is a helper function that returns the currently authenticated user or null if no user is authenticated. To handle returning the User class or null, you can use conditional logic to check if a user is authenticated before accessing the user instance.

$user = Auth::user();

if ($user) {
    // User is authenticated, do something with $user
} else {
    // No user is authenticated
}