Vista - Count bug in Get_ChildItem?

The output below illustrates what appears to be a bug in PowerShell. I am
trying to identify empty folders by testing the Count of found files. It
appears that there must be 2 or more files in the current folder before Count
contains a value. Has anyone else seen this, or can you explain why Count
apparently never equals 1?

I started with one file in the folder and $Files.Count returned nothing.
When I added a file $Files.Count went to 2.

----------------

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> get-childitem


Directory:
Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x


Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a--- 9/4/2007 10:46 AM 942 a.txt


PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> $Files = get-childitem
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> $Files


Directory:
Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x


Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a--- 9/4/2007 10:46 AM 942 a.txt


PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> $Files.Count
*** NO COUNT OUTPUT ***
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> dir > b.txt
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> get-childitem


Directory:
Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x


Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a--- 9/4/2007 10:46 AM 942 a.txt
-a--- 9/4/2007 10:49 AM 1184 b.txt


PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> $Files = get-childitem
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> $Files


Directory:
Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x


Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a--- 9/4/2007 10:46 AM 942 a.txt
-a--- 9/4/2007 10:49 AM 1184 b.txt


PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> $Files.Count
2
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x>

In an empty folder get-childItem's return is $null.
In a folder with one item the object get-childItem returns is either
System.IO.DirectoryInfo or System.IO.FileInfo depending if the item is a
folder or a file. Neither object has a Count property; System.IO.FileInfo
has a Length property but that contains the files size.
In a folder with more than one item get-childItem returns a System.Object[]
array which has the Count property.
To ensure a Count property in any scenario enclose the expression with the
array notation '@()', that way you will always get a System.Object[].

$Files = @(get-childitem)
$Files.count

--
Kiron

It's because when you have 2 files, $files is an array containing 2 files,
whereas it's a 'fileinfo' object with just 1 file.

Try this with your 2 examples
$files.GetType()

This should work for both cases
$Files = @(get-childitem)

--
Jon


"Byron" <Byron@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9BDBC83C-6719-42E6-BD38-2FB172F1CFD0@xxxxxx

"Byron" <Byron@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9BDBC83C-6719-42E6-BD38-2FB172F1CFD0@xxxxxxClassic nuance of PowerShell. When a cmdlet only outputs a single item, you
are dealing with a scalar value. In this case a System.IO.FileInfo object
and it has no count property. As soon as you have multiple items and assign
that to a variable, you get an array. Array's in PowerShell do have a count
property. There are two ways to work with this. First is to use the
measure-object cmdlet - it handles this situation very well:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\x> get-childitem |
measure-object

The second way is to force the result into an array like so:

$Files = @(get-childitem)
$Files.count
1

--
Keith