Hi r/powershell,

I have an issue that I don't understand. I have a function that gets the content of a file. The functions first tests if the file exist with Test-Path, and if it does not, it creates the file with New-Item. It then proceed to get its content with Get-Content and sends it to the pipeline. I would expect two possible outcomes: Either it send $null to the pipeline, since the file was just created and is empty, or it sends the content of the file to the pipeline. However, if I the file does not yet exist, it send the fileinfo of the file to the pipeline.

Here is the function:

Function Import-History {

    if (-not (Test-Path -Path $script:path_history)) {

        New-Item -Path $script:path_history -Type File -Value $null

    }

    Get-Content -Path $script:path_history | ConvertFrom-Json 

}

$path_history = Join-Path -Path $PSScriptRoot -ChildPath 'History\History.json'

Import-History

If the file does not exist, the output is:

PS P:\> Import-History


    Directory: P:\History


Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name                                                                                                                                                                       
----                -------------         ------ ----                                                                                                                                                                       
-a----        9/30/2017   2:02 PM              0 History.json                                                                                                                                                               



PS P:\> 

If I run it again:

PS P:\> Import-History

PS P:\> 

Why is that?