The Default PowerShell Constructor

[iRon7]

Type of issue

Missing information

Feedback

In my opinion, the feature:

The hashtable syntax only works for classes that have a default constructor that doesn't expect any parameters. It creates an instance of the class with the default constructor and then assigns the key-value pairs to the instance properties. If any key in the hashtable isn't a valid property name, PowerShell raises an error.

deserves a beter name than hashtable syntax, considering that this feature include more than a "hashtable syntax":

• A runtime conversion (type casting)
• Is not specific to hashtables but all dictionary objects and also PSCustomObjects
• And even recursively converts complete object-graphs derived from e.g. a Json file
  (see e.g.: Trying to Deserialize JSON to typed Object in Powershell)

I am not native English, but I think something like the Default PowerShell Constructor would better cover the context.
A result of this feature is that you could use a "hashtable syntax" during design-time to pre-populate its properties

From my view, this feature is not known/understood enough resulting in PowerShell scripters designing there own custom constructors (which less functionality and consistency as e.g. error messages) or even functions around the class/instance to populate the related properties.

Page URL

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_classes?view=powershell-7.5

Content source URL

https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/PowerShell-Docs/blob/main/reference/7.5/Microsoft.PowerShell.Core/About/about_Classes.md

Author

@sdwheeler

Platform Id

b1fb7f15-4113-8097-756b-806c3754b04a

Document Id

9bdef14d-66f7-ee94-2ab9-e16bd6bc751e

[mklement0]

C# calls its analogous feature Collection and Object Initializers