Question

Take this code:

$logged_on_user = get-wmiobject win32_computersystem | select username

If I want to output the value into a new string I’d do something like:

$A = $logged_on_user.username

However, if I do the following:

$logged_on_user = get-wmiobject win32_computersystem | select *

..to try to assign all the values to a new “object”, do I?:

$logged_on_user.items
$logged_on_user.value
$logged_on_user.text
$logged_on_user.propertry

I’ve tried them all and they don’t work.

Anybody got any ideas?

Thanks

P.S. I think I may have got the title of this question wrong.

Answer 1

In your example:

$logged_on_user = get-wmiobject win32_computersystem | select username

creates a new PSCustomObject with a single property – username. When you do the following:

$A = $logged_on_user.username

you are assigning the return value of the PSCustomObject’s username property to a variable $A. Because the return type of the username property is a string, $A will also be a string.

When executing the following:

$cs = get-wmiobject win32_computersystem

If you assign $cs to a new variable like in the following:

$newVariable = $cs

Then $newVariable will reference the same object $cs does, so all properties and methods that are accessible on $cs will also be accessible on $newVariable.

If you don’t specify any properties or call any methods on an object when assigning a return value to another variable, then the return value is the object itself, not the return value of one of the object’s properties or methods.

Additional info, but not directly related to the question:

When you pipe the output of get-wmiobject to select-object, like in the following:

$cs = get-wmiobject win32_computersystem | select-object *

The variable $cs is of type: PSCustomObject as opposed to ManagementObject (as it is when you do not pipe to Select-Object) which has all of the same properties and their values that the ManagementObject that was piped in did.

So, if you only want the property values contained by the ManagementObject, there is no need to pipe the output to Select-Object as this just creates a new object (of type PSCustomObject) with the values from the MangementObject. Select-Object is useful when you either want to select a subset of the properties of the object that is being piped in, or if you want to create a new PSCustomObject with different properties that are calculated through expressions.