ConvertTo-JSON an array with a single item

Question

I'm trying to create a JSON-serialized array. When that array contains only one item I get a string, not an array of strings (in JSON).

Multiple Items (works as expected):

PS C:\> @("one", "two") | ConvertTo-JSON [     "one",     "two" ] 

Single Item Array (not as expected):

PS C:\> @("one") | ConvertTo-JSON "one" 

Am I missing something?

Answer 1

Try without the pipeline:

PS C:\> ConvertTo-Json @('one', 'two') [     "one",     "two" ] PS C:\> ConvertTo-Json @('one') [     "one" ]

Answer 2

I hit this problem as well but it was because my structure was too deep and ConvertTo-Json flattens everything below a certain depth to a string.

For example:

PS C:\> $MyObject = @{ "a" = @{ "b" = @{ "c" = @("d") } } } PS C:\> ConvertTo-Json $MyObject {     "a":  {               "b":  {                         "c":  "d"                     }           } } 

To fix this, you can pass a larger value to -Depth

PS C:\> ConvertTo-Json $MyObject -Depth 100 {     "a":  {               "b":  {                         "c":  [                                   "d"                               ]                     }           } }