If Powershell command separator is ; (semicolon), why does "date; dir" make dir output extra details?

I understand that semicolon is a command separator in Powershell. echo "hello"; dir gives this output.

PS C:\> echo "hello"; dir
hello

Directory: C:\

Mode         LastWriteTime     Length Name
----         -------------     ------ ----
d-----       2018-04-29 13:02         BCD_Backup
d-----       2018-12-02 14:08         Dell
<snip>

But why does date; dir give this output?

PS C:\> date; dir

Friday, December 14, 2018 11:14:23

PSPath            : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\BCD_Backup
PSParentPath      : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\
PSChildName       : BCD_Backup
PSDrive           : C
PSProvider        : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem
PSIsContainer     : True
Name              : BCD_Backup
FullName          : C:\BCD_Backup
Parent            :
Exists            : True
Root              : C:\
Extension         :
CreationTime      : 2018-04-29 13:02:31
CreationTimeUtc   : 2018-04-29 11:02:31
LastAccessTime    : 2018-04-29 13:02:31
LastAccessTimeUtc : 2018-04-29 11:02:31
LastWriteTime     : 2018-04-29 13:02:31
LastWriteTimeUtc  : 2018-04-29 11:02:31
Attributes        : Directory
Mode              : d-----
BaseName          : BCD_Backup
Target            : {}
LinkType          :


PSPath            : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\Dell
PSParentPath      : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\
<snip>

Solution 1:

From Out-Default docs:

PowerShell automatically adds Out-Default to the end of every pipeline…

Definitely, a semicolon itself does not suffice for recognizing such a state:

Get-Alias -Name gal; Get-Location

CommandType     Name                                          Version    Source
-----------     ----                                          -------    ------
Alias           gal -> Get-Alias

Drive        : D
Provider     : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem
ProviderPath : D:\PShell
Path         : D:\PShell

Adding Out-Default to the pipeline explicitly solves the problem:

Get-Alias -Name gal | Out-Default; Get-Location

CommandType     Name                                          Version    Source
-----------     ----                                          -------    ------
Alias           gal -> Get-Alias


Path
----
D:\PShell

Solution 2:

As powershell executes statements one-by-one, I think, it applies output formatting of the first statement to all subsequent statements.

As Get-Date returns an object of DateTime type, it gets formatted as list, affecting your 'dir' output.

You can test this assumption by changing return type of Get-Date to string using 'format' option:

date -Format yyyy-MM-dd ; dir

(this will produce default output for 'dir')

Or by changing default output formatting by pipelining it to Format-Table:

 date | Format-Table ; dir