Common Issues?

Sorry to trouble but there's got to be a better mousetrap.

I LOVE Powershell by the way and I read a good many of
Jeff's words on the topic but I'm no hot-shot code jock...

so here's the issues.
(sorry if not formatted how you all may prefer)

Firstly are a few simple returns from get-childitem

As a general rule I'll pull a file list like so:
 $FileList = Get-ChildItem ($SourcePath) -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select Directory, BaseName, Length

which gives a nice list  Directory Basename Length

so I can do $FileList.Directory.ToString or more to the point
$FileList.Count....  this supposedly gives a count of contents.

-- Not so!!!
 if there is only ONE file returned the .count is NULL not One....
 so then it's piles of trapping...

I used to: if ($FileList.Count) do something
or perhaps index in a var:
$TestFile = $FileList[$Count].Directory.ToString()

But with one file it all blows up - cant index a null array

-- Sure this is old news now is there some work around?

--> Got several others like this

Use the Com object folderbrowser?
returns a slash \ on all roots but not so with
subdirs  so ya gotta sanitize with a
    foreach ($file in $FileList) {
       $Slash*t = $FileList[$i].Directory.ToString()
         if ($Slash*t[($Slash*t.length -1)] -ne "\") {
        $FileList[$i].Directory = $FileList[$i].Directory.ToString() + "\"
                }       

Just maddening....   however the index .count is how I built
up a big script and I need a better solution than wrapping
every indexing job with an
if $List is null then do $Filelist.Directory else do
$Filelist[INDEX].Directory

Dont get me started with reserved chars in GetChilditem
as in [ and ]  --  escape them with ````[   just crazy!

The question I guess is any ideas how a FileList returned
from get-childitem will have a .count property when ONE
file is returned  (by the way 2 files offer a count of "2")
so re-inserting the original single file back into the list
gives a count of 2!  

Gotta be an easy one for you all!

Thanks for the rant Guys and keep up the fine work over here

Thanks for taking the time to respond

You're correct I'm not piping thru' but looping on .COUNT
to process the file list....  so one file in the collection
returning zero or null is an issue.

so (get-childitem PATH | measure).count indeed returns 1

but that's not an index value into my collection but may provide
a workaround.   Perhaps a lesson from Jeff's measure object...
($list | measure).count  -- works as well

Sure wish the collection would simply return the number
of elements like any sane language
--  ONE member exists  one is the 'measure' but simply
calling the .Count from the collection with one member
returns NULL?

Sorry for not better understanding the pipeline but to
this old dawg this is a MAJOR glitch!  A null array/collection
has no members at all  - not one hiding quietly in the void!

Again thanks for at least the response you got me moving
but it's gonna be a kludge for a rare occurrence of a one
file in the directory.

running CTP3 by the way

Thanks a TON for the help!
HowY

GOT IT!

Yes.  YOu can force a collection or array but it is not usually needed.  WHen you do a slect-object you are returning a subset of properties.  This changes nothing.  You cannot suscript in your case as it will never work the way you are doing it even with a collection.  

Edited by jvierra - 08 Feb 2010 at 17:01