I previously asked a question about setting ComObject property values, and found irregular behavior when setting ComObject property values.
$options = @{
'foo' ='bar';
'bizz' = 'buzz';
}
$document = 'C:\Form_template.doc'
$word = new-object -ComObject Word.application
$doc = $word.Documents.Open($document)
$word.visible = $true
$fields = $doc.FormFields
I can attempt to set the value of the FormField in three ways, and the behavior is different than I would anticipate.
PS C:\>#Attempting to set the property directly from the hash object returns failure.
PS C:\>$fields.item('foo').Result = $options['foo']
PS C:\> $doc.FormFields.Item('foo').Result
PS C:\> $options['foo'].getType()
IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType
-------- -------- ---- --------
True True String System.Object
PS C:\>#We can successfully set the value with a string directly.
PS C:\>$fields.item('foo').Result = 'bar'
PS C:\> $doc.FormFields.Item('foo').Result
bar
PS C:\>#But this object is the same type as the hash object...
PS C:\>'bar'.getType()
IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType
-------- -------- ---- --------
True True String System.Object
PS C:\>#If we set the value with a [string] cast, we also get success
PS C:\>$fields.item('foo').Result = [string]$options['foo']
PS C:\>$doc.FormFields.Item('foo').Result
buzz
PS C:\>#But this object is a different type.
PS C:\> [string]$options['foo'].getType()
string
Edit:
PS C:\Users\stobias> ([string]$options['foo']).getType()
IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType
-------- -------- ---- --------
True True String
PS C:\Users\stobias\Desktop> [type]::GetTypeArray((,$options['CommonName']))
IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType
-------- -------- ---- --------
True True String System.Object
So what's going on under the hood here?
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the 'bar' object and the options['foo'] object are the same type, but they result in different behavior when setting the value of the ComObject property.
Is there some type of type inference that powershell does when I put a string directly in?
