Breaking Get-ChildItem Return Types

I have always seemed to have issues working with objects returned from Get-ChildItem. There was always some type of formatting that had to be done to the path string to use it in whatever next cmdlet I was using to work with that output. Turns out, depending on what parameters are used the object type returned changes. Which changes the format of the full path of the object. Using the -Name param to filter, returns a string that starts with "Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::". Knowing this ahead of time will save plenty of headaches bug hunting later on. Run the script below to get a better idea.

$gci = Get-ChildItem -Path .\README.md

$gci_withname = Get-ChildItem -Path . -Name "README.md" 

$gci_withfilter = Get-ChildItem -Path . | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq "README.md"} 

Write-Output "`n---------------------------`nObject returned properties`n___________" 

$gci 

$gci_withname 

$gci_withfilter 

Write-Output "`nObject Fullname/PSPath`n_________" 

$gci.FullName 

$gci_withname.PSPath 

$gci_withfilter.FullName 

Write-Output "`nObject type name`n_________" 

$gci.GetType().Name 

$gci_withname.GetType().Name 

$gci_withfilter.GetType().Name 

Write-Output "`nObject base type`n__________" 

Write-host "$($gci.GetType().BaseType)" 

Write-host "$($gci_withname.GetType().BaseType)" 

Write-host "$($gci_withfilter.GetType().BaseType)" 

Set-Location C:\Code\

$gci = Get-ChildItem

$gci_name = Get-ChildItem -Path .  -Name "Projects"

$gci_filter = Get-ChildItem -Filter *Projects*

$gci_depth = Get-ChildItem -Depth 1

$gci_depth_fil = Get-ChildItem -Depth 1 -Filter Projects

$gci_depth_name = Get-ChildItem -Depth 1 -Name Projects

Write-Host $gci[0].GetType()

Write-Host $gci_name.GetType()

Write-Host $gci_filter.GetType()

Write-Host $gci_depth[0].GetType()

Write-Host $gci_depth_fil[0].GetType()

Write-Host $gci_depth_name[0].GetType()