request new password bug

When run on php 5 there seems to be bug when the user tries to request a new password and user_pass() is called. The code looks like this:

if ($edit['name'] && !($account = user_load(array('name' => $edit['name'], 'status' => 1)))) {
  form_set_error('name', t('Sorry. The username %name is not recognized.', array('%name' => theme('placeholder', $edit['name']))));
}
else if ($edit['mail'] && !($account = user_load(array('mail' => $edit['mail'], 'status' => 1)))) {
  form_set_error('mail', t('Sorry. The e-mail address %email is not recognized.', array('%email' => theme('placeholder', $edit['mail']))));
}

But the problem is that user_load() always returns a StdClass even if a user isn't found, so the two checks above never get triggered.

This is my fix to get around this issue. But there is probably a much better way to do it, I don't really understand PHP and my "instanceof" approach kept causing errors.

if ($edit['name'] && (!($account = user_load(array('name' => $edit['name'], 'status' => 1))) || !$account->name)) {
  form_set_error('name', t('Sorry. The username %name is not recognized.', array('%name' => theme('placeholder', $edit['name']))));
  $account = NULL;
}
else if ($edit['mail'] && (!($account = user_load(array('mail' => $edit['mail'], 'status' => 1))) || !$account->name)) {
  form_set_error('mail', t('Sorry. The e-mail address %email is not recognized.', array('%email' => theme('placeholder', $edit['mail']))));
  $account = NULL;
}