Understanding the .NET Class type in PowerShell

PowerShell Help
1

I find it’s a bit weird to check the type of .NET Class in PowerShell.

For example, if you issue the command:

[system.math] | gm

You’ll get a long list of generic members with the type name on the first line:

TypeName: System.RuntimeType

But if you run:

[system.math] | gm -static

It gives you the real static members of this class with the type:

TypeName: System.Math

It looks confusing to me. From my understanding, the -static parameter only tells the command to retrieve static members but should not affect the type if returns.

Can anyone explain why it behaves like this?

Thanks.

 

2

You are getting System.RuntimeType in the output because system.math is a class type not an object. You will get the same results when piping System.Int32 to gm:

[System.Int32] | gm

TypeName: System.RuntimeType

 

However, when you create integer object “73” using system.int32 and pass it to gm, you will get a System.Int32 object, along with its static methods.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> [system.int32]73 | gm

TypeName: System.Int32

I hope this helps.

 

 

3 
# static method
PS /Users/js> [System.Math]::sqrt(4)                                                                             
2

PS /Users/js> $ping = [System.Net.Networkinformation.ping]::new()                                                                                                                                       
# instance method
PS /Users/js> $ping.send('yahoo.com')                                                                            
Status        : Success
Address       : 2001:4998:58:1836::11
RoundtripTime : 31
Options       : 
Buffer        : {}