Problem scenario: Sometimes variables get values you do not expect. Handling these exceptions is the mark of a good programmer.
A PowerShell variable (e.g., $contint) may have the following content:
"
second line
third line"
When a variable's value can span lines, conditional tests act unpredictably when they use such a variable. For example a conditional test of the variable like this if(!($contint)) may not work as you expect. You may have also tried different tests like these: if($contint = ""), if($contint == ""), or if(!(Get-Variable $contint)). Those will not seem to work if you have a multi-line variable with a blank line.
How do you test if the variable is empty while taking into account the variable's value itself spans two or more lines with a top line that is blank?
Answer
Use this: if($contint -eq "")
This will resolve to "true" if the variable is empty. It will evaluate to "false" if the top line in the $contint variable is blank despite other characters on lines below the first line.