Understanding the .NET Class type in PowerShell

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.

 

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.

 

 

# 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        : {}