Fix 'invalid char in json text' error

[zl4bv]

After further testing and closer inspection of the Chef logs, it seems my change in #134 introduced a different kind of error:

[2015-06-18T21:34:00+00:00] DEBUG: No data to collect for plugin Virtualization. Continuing...
[2015-06-18T21:34:00+00:00] DEBUG: No hints present for azure.
[2015-06-18T21:35:20+00:00] ERROR: Could not parse hint file at C:\chef\ohai\hints/ec2.json: lexical error: invalid char in json text.
                                       ÿþ
                     (right here) ------^

[2015-06-18T21:35:20+00:00] DEBUG: has_ec2_mac? == false
[2015-06-18T21:35:20+00:00] DEBUG: looks_like_ec2? == false

Apparently the method I used inserts a UTF-16 byte order mark.

The fix in this PR creates an empty file with no BOM.

[tyler-ball]

Assigning to myself so we will review this during bug triage

[tyler-ball]

@zl4bv Nice catch and thanks for the PR. I'm no Windows expert - will this work on Windows Server 2008? I'm guessing it more depends on the version of Powershell present?

[zl4bv]

As far as I know PowerShell has always used UTF-16 encoding (with BOM) as the default. This thread leads me to believe this has been the case since at least PowerShell 2.0.

When you call the New-Item PowerShell Cmdlet without the -Value flag I guess it doesn't try to write to the file and therefore doesn't apply any encoding. With $null >> it writes (nothing) to the file but it still sets the encoding by that action.

[zl4bv]

The New-Item Cmdlet was introduced in PowerShell 3.0 so it will work with Server 2008 and Server 2008 both as long as Service Pack 1 installed - which the images offered by Amazon do have installed.

[tyler-ball]

I would like to get @smurawski's opinion, but I am 👍

[smurawski]

The Type alias (for ItemType) wasn't introduced until PowerShell 3. Server 2008R2 ships with PS 2 by default and this will work fine if you change the parameter to -ItemType (which will be valid from PowerShell 1 and up)

[smurawski]

@zl4bv @tyler-ball I'd just make that one parameter name change and then I'm 👍

[zl4bv]

Thanks for the suggestion @smurawski :)

Did you still want me to change the parameter name @tyler-ball?

[tyler-ball]

@zl4bv I did it when I merged it - thanks for the initial contribution!