You have a collection of values in a variable. When you pipe the variable to the Get-Member cmdlet you get the type and members of each item in that collection. PowerShell unrolls the collection and sends each item through the pipeline, one at a time, to the Get-Member cmdlet.
PS> $array = "one",2 PS> $array | Get-Member TypeName: System.String Name MemberType Definition ---- ---------- ---------- Clone Method System.Object Clone(), System.Object ... CompareTo Method int CompareTo(System.Object value), i... (...) TypeName: System.Int32 Name MemberType Definition ---- ---------- ---------- CompareTo Method int CompareTo(System.Object value), int CompareTo... Equals Method bool Equals(System.Object obj), bool Equals(int o... (...)
Most of the time that’s the desired output. However, there are cases where you’ll need to get the members of the collection itself. To do so, you can choose one of three approaches. Call the GetType method on a variable:
PS> $array.GetType() IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType -------- -------- ---- -------- True True Object[] System.Array
Pass the collection object to the InputObject parameter of the Get-Member cmdlet:
PS> Get-Member -InputObject $array TypeName: System.Object[] Name MemberType Definition ---- ---------- ---------- Count AliasProperty Count = Length Add Method int IList.Add(System.Object value) Address Method System.Object&, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0... Clear Method void IList.Clear() Clone Method System.Object Clone(), System.Object IC... CompareTo Method int IStructuralComparable.CompareTo(Sys... (...)
Or use the unary comma operator to create an array with one member. That way when the array is unrolled the inner array will pass through the pipeline as one item.
PS> ,$array | Get-Member
