Powershell pitfalls

Question

What Powershell pitfalls you have fall into? :-)

Mine are:

# -----------------------------------
function foo()
{
    @(\"text\")
}

# Expected 1, a         


        

Answer 1

Say you've got the following XML file:

Run this:

PS > $myDoc = [xml](Get-Content $pathToMyDoc)
PS > @($myDoc.SelectNodes("/Root/Child")).Count
2
PS > @($myDoc.Root.Child).Count
2

Now edit the XML file so it has no Child nodes, just the Root node, and run those statements again:

PS > $myDoc = [xml](Get-Content $pathToMyDoc)
PS > @($myDoc.SelectNodes("/Root/Child")).Count
0
PS > @($myDoc.Root.Child).Count
1

That 1 is annoying when you want to iterate over a collection of nodes using foreach if and only if there actually are any. This is how I learned that you cannot use the XML handler's property (dot) notation as a simple shortcut. I believe what's happening is that SelectNodes returns a collection of 0. When @'ed, it is transformed from an XPathNodeList to an Object[] (check GetType()), but the length is preserved. The dynamically generated $myDoc.Root.Child property (which essentially does not exist) returns $null. When $null is @'ed, it becomes an array of length 1.