Powershell Get-ChildItem returns object not array

Question

It seems Get-ChildItem returns a single object instead of an array of one object if it only finds one item. For example this returns 5:

$files = Get-ChildItem -Filter "e*.txt"
$files.length

But the following should return 1 but returns 61321:

$files = Get-ChildItem -Filter "exact.txt"
$files.length

The 61321 is the size in bytes of the file exact.txt.

How can we consistently check if there were files found?

Answer 1

It is a "feature" of Get-ChildItem that it won't return an array with one item but instead the single object. To force an array append @ as in:

$files = @(Get-ChildItem -Filter "e*.txt")

Alternatively if you just want to check if there are NO files you can do:

$files = Get-ChildItem -Filter "exact.txt"
if (!$files) {"No Files"}