Question

What is the difference between variables $a and $b?

$a = (Get-Date).DayOfWeek
$b = Get-Date | Select-Object DayOfWeek

I tried to check

$a.GetType
$b.GetType

MemberType          : Method
OverloadDefinitions : {type GetType()}
TypeNameOfValue     : System.Management.Automation.PSMethod
Value               : type GetType()
Name                : GetType
IsInstance          : True

MemberType          : Method
OverloadDefinitions : {type GetType()}
TypeNameOfValue     : System.Management.Automation.PSMethod
Value               : type GetType()
Name                : GetType
IsInstance          : True

But there seems to be no difference although the output of these variables looks different.

Answer 1

First of all, you lack parentheses to call GetType. What you see is the MethodInfo describing the GetType method on [DayOfWeek]. To actually call GetType, you should do:

$a.GetType();
$b.GetType();

You should see that $a is a [DayOfWeek], and $b is a custom object generated by the Select-Object cmdlet to capture only the DayOfWeek property of a data object. Hence, it’s an object with a DayOfWeek property only:

C:\> $b.DayOfWeek -eq $a
True