$null on the left or right side.

PowerShell Help
1

I have noticed to warning in PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio, when I write something like this:

if($MyVar -eq $null)

that $null should be on left side only. And I decided to do small experiment:

if (@() -eq $null) { 'true' }else { 'false' }
if (@() -ne $null) { 'true' }else { 'false' }

if ($null -eq @()) { 'true' }else { 'false' }
if ($null -ne @()) { 'true' }else { 'false' }
If $null on the right side - the first two expressions return 'false' both. But, when null on the left side (last two expressions) - I've got 'false' and 'true'.
May somebody to explain in details this behavior ?
2

I get the same result from both, that I’d expect…but I also have read that $Null should be on left…$null -eq $MyVar





$MyVar = $null


$something = "me"


if ($MyVar -eq $null) { 'true' }else { 'false' }


if ($MyVar -ne $null) { 'true' }else { 'false' }


if ($something -eq $null) { 'true' }else { 'false' }


if ($something -ne $null) { 'true' }else { 'false' }


if ($null -eq $MyVar) { 'true' }else { 'false' }


if ($null -ne $MyVar) { 'true' }else { 'false' }


if ($null -eq $something) { 'true' }else { 'false' }


if ($null -ne $something) { 'true' }else { 'false' }










true

false

false

true

true

false

false

true

 

3 
5 -eq $null   # False
@() -eq $null # $null
$null -eq @() # False
$null -eq 5   # False

does it make sense now!?

In other words, when $null on the left side the -eq or -ne operators will cause the expression to evaluate to True or False, whereas when $null is on the right side the expression will evaluate to $null or True or False. When the expression evaluates to $null, the ‘else’ branch of the ‘if’ statement is invoked.

4

Its well covered here