private static String string(Object object) {
    return object == null ? null : object.toString();
  }
Parse utilities ported to Java from <a href=
"https://github.com/omniscale/imposm3/blob/master/mapping/columns.go">omniscale/imposm3:mapping/columns.go</a>
planetiler-core/src/main/java/com/onthegomap/planetiler/util/Imposm3Parsers.java