vb.net casting a powershell output of objectmodel.collection(of PSObject) to a usable VB.net object

Question

I'm using vb.net to remotely run some powershell commands, the output of the powershell.invoke is of the

ObjectModel.Collection(Of PSObject)

Type.

I'd like to cast these to usable vb.net class / collection. When I debug the code, and hover over the output / ObjectModel.Collection(Of PSObject) the data is shown as;

(0) {@{Name=John;Books=System.Collections.ArrayList}}
(1) {@{Name=Gerry;Books=System.Collections.ArrayList}}

How can I cast this into usable vb.net class/object?

I've try to make a custom class like so;

Class BookOwner
     public name as string
     public Books as systems.collections.arraylist
end class

and then cast it to the object;

dim MyBookOwner as BookOwner = trycast(Output(0).BaseObject, BookOwner)

output is of the objectmodel.collection(of PSObject) type.

But after the trycast the MyBookOwner stays empty.

How can I cast the ObjectModel.Collection(Of PSOject) to a usable vb.net object.

Answer 1

Based on what I can see of the PSObject type and not having done any actual testing, I think that you may be able to do this:

Dim bookOwners As New List(Of BookOwner)

For Each pso In myPsObjectCollection
    Dim props = pso.Properties
    Dim name = CStr(props.Single(Function(pspi) pspi.Name = "Name").Value)
    Dim books = DirectCast(props.Single(Function(pspi) pspi.Name = "Books").Value, ArrayList)

    bookOwners.Add(New BookOwner With (.Name = name, .Books = books})
Next

Of course, you could also condense that into a LINQ query if you wanted to.