PowerShell doesn't return an empty array as an array

Question

Given that this works:

$ar = @() $ar -is [Array]   True 

Why doesn't this work?

function test {     $arr = @()     return $arr }  $ar = test $ar -is [Array]   False 

That is, why isn't an empty array returned from the test function?

Answer 1

Your function doesn't work because PowerShell returns all non-captured stream output, not just the argument of the return statement. An empty array is mangled into $null in the process. However, you can preserve an array on return by prepending it with the array construction operator (,):

function test {   $arr = @()   return ,$arr }