PowerShell Cmdlets .length attribute for one element result

Question

I am using a Cmdlet which can return one or more elements:

PS C:\Users\admin> $x = Get-myObjects
PS C:\Users\admin> $x


ComputerName               : test-2
Description                : n/a
Id                         : cbcb1ece-99f5-4478-9f02-65a622df8a98
IsActive                   :
MinNum                     : 0
Name                       : scom-test2-mp
modeType                   : 1
PSComputerName             :

If I use length attribute I get nothing.

PS C:\Users\admin> $x.length
PS C:\Users\admin>

Yet, if the Get-myObjects cmdlet returns 2 or more, then it is a collection and I can get .length attribute.

How can I get the .length to work if the Get-myObjects cmdlet returns a single object for one object value?

Answer 1

You can always force the result into an array, either when assigning the return value of your cmdlet to a variable:

$x = @(Get-myObjects)
$x.Length

or "on-demand":

$x = Get-myObjects
@($x).Length

Answer 2

Use the Measure-Object cmdlet. It's a little clunky here because you can't just get the count in an elegant way.

$x = Get-myObjects
$x | measure-object

Output:

Count : 1
Average :
Sum :
Maximum :
Minimum :
Property :

If you just want the count:

$x | measure-object | select -ExpandProperty Count

Output:

1

Answer 3

I noticed that in this case it is better to use the foreach loop of powershell.

reference of logical loops in PowerShell

example:

foreach($i in $x)
{
  Write-Host $i.Name
}

The above example works for both when $x has one element or more.