Fix parsing of empty hashtable when string is provided as settings object

[bergmeister]

PR Summary

Fixes #1063 whereby parsing the settings hashtable fails when it is being provided as a string due to a helper method returning null instead of an empty list.

PR Checklist

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[JamesWTruher]

👍

[JamesWTruher]

it's curious, a malformed file will still be accepted, I created a file:

@{ ExcludeRules = @()

not sure what to do about it though

[bergmeister]

@JamesWTruher This is due to issue #1053. Using the -Verbose switch, one can at least get the information out that parsing failed but it is basically a problem of the initial design that should be fixed with a separate refactoring (that would be more involved)