$files->render() returns an empty string instead of an empty array

[BernhardBaumrock]

I'm using $files->render() in RockFrontend to get the result of AJAX endpoints. If the endpoint returns an array, RockFrontend will automatically set the content type to application/json.

Today I realised that if my file returns an empty array, ProcessWire will not return an empty array but an empty string!

This is ok:

// foo.php
return ['foo' => 'foo'];

// render-foo.php
$result = $files->render(__DIR__ . '/foo.php');

// result will be ['foo' => 'foo']

This is not:

// bar.php
return [];

// render-bar.php
$result = $files->render(__DIR__ . '/bar.php');

// result will be '' and not []

@ryancramerdesign is this intentional?

I have added a workaround in RockFrontend but I think when the files returns and empty array the result should be an empty array and not an empty string.