PSCustomObject to Hashtable

Question

What is the easiest way to convert a PSCustomObject to a Hashtable? It displays just like one with the splat operator, curly braces and what appear to be key value pairs. When I try to cast it to [Hashtable] it doesn't work. I also tried .toString() and the assigned variable says its a string but displays nothing - any ideas?

Answer 1

Shouldn't be too hard. Something like this should do the trick:

# Create a PSCustomObject (ironically using a hashtable)
$ht1 = @{ A = 'a'; B = 'b'; DateTime = Get-Date }
$theObject = new-object psobject -Property $ht1

# Convert the PSCustomObject back to a hashtable
$ht2 = @{}
$theObject.psobject.properties | Foreach { $ht2[$_.Name] = $_.Value }

Answer 2

Keith already gave you the answer, this is just another way of doing the same with a one-liner:

$psobject.psobject.properties | foreach -begin {$h=@{}} -process {$h."$($_.Name)" = $_.Value} -end {$h}

Answer 3

Here's a version that works with nested hashtables / arrays as well (which is useful if you're trying to do this with DSC ConfigurationData):

function ConvertPSObjectToHashtable
{
    param (
        [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline)]
        $InputObject
    )

    process
    {
        if ($null -eq $InputObject) { return $null }

        if ($InputObject -is [System.Collections.IEnumerable] -and $InputObject -isnot [string])
        {
            $collection = @(
                foreach ($object in $InputObject) { ConvertPSObjectToHashtable $object }
            )

            Write-Output -NoEnumerate $collection
        }
        elseif ($InputObject -is [psobject])
        {
            $hash = @{}

            foreach ($property in $InputObject.PSObject.Properties)
            {
                $hash[$property.Name] = ConvertPSObjectToHashtable $property.Value
            }

            $hash
        }
        else
        {
            $InputObject
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

My extremely lazy approach, enabled by a new feature in PowerShell 6:

$myhashtable = $mypscustomobject | ConvertTo-Json | ConvertFrom-Json -AsHashTable

Answer 5

This works for PSCustomObjects created by ConvertFrom_Json.

Function ConvertConvertFrom-JsonPSCustomObjectToHash($obj)
{
    $hash = @{}
     $obj | Get-Member -MemberType Properties | SELECT -exp "Name" | % {
                $hash[$_] = ($obj | SELECT -exp $_)
      }
      $hash
}

Disclaimer: I barely understand PowerShell so this is probably not as clean as it could be. But it works (for one level only).

Answer 6

My code:

function PSCustomObjectConvertToHashtable() {
    param(
        [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline)]
        $object
    )

    if ( $object -eq $null ) { return $null }

    if ( $object -is [psobject] ) {
        $result = @{}
        $items = $object | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty
        foreach( $item in $items ) {
            $key = $item.Name
            $value = PSCustomObjectConvertToHashtable -object $object.$key
            $result.Add($key, $value)
        }
        return $result
    } elseif ($object -is [array]) {
        $result = [object[]]::new($object.Count)
        for ($i = 0; $i -lt $object.Count; $i++) {
            $result[$i] = (PSCustomObjectConvertToHashtable -object $object[$i])
        }
        return ,$result
    } else {
        return $object
    }
}

Answer 7

Today, the "easiest way" to convert PSCustomObject to Hashtable would be so:

$custom_obj | ConvertTo-HashtableFromPsCustomObject    

OR

[hashtable]$custom_obj

Conversely, you can convert a Hashtable to PSCustomObject using:

[PSCustomObject]$hash_table

Only snag is, these nifty options may not be available in older versions of PS

Answer 8

For simple [PSCustomObject] to [Hashtable] conversion Keith's Answer works best.

However if you need more options you can use

function ConvertTo-Hashtable {
    <#
    .Synopsis
        Converts an object to a hashtable
    .DESCRIPTION
        PowerShell v4 seems to have trouble casting some objects to Hashtable.
        This function is a workaround to convert PS Objects to [Hashtable]
    .LINK
        https://github.com/alainQtec/.files/blob/main/src/scripts/Converters/ConvertTo-Hashtable.ps1
    .NOTES
        Base ref: https://community.idera.com/database-tools/powershell/powertips/b/tips/posts/turning-objects-into-hash-tables-2
    #>
    PARAM(
        # The object to convert to a hashtable
        [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline = $true, Mandatory = $true)]
        $InputObject,

        # Forces the values to be strings and converts them by running them through Out-String
        [switch]$AsString,

        # If set, empty properties are Included
        [switch]$AllowNulls,

        # Make each hashtable to have it's own set of properties, otherwise,
        # (default) each InputObject is normalized to the properties on the first object in the pipeline
        [switch]$DontNormalize
    )
    BEGIN {
        $headers = @()
    }
    PROCESS {
        if (!$headers -or $DontNormalize) {
            $headers = $InputObject | Get-Member -type Properties | Select-Object -expand name
        }
        $OutputHash = @{}
        if ($AsString) {
            foreach ($col in $headers) {
                if ($AllowNulls -or ($InputObject.$col -is [bool] -or ($InputObject.$col))) {
                    $OutputHash.$col = $InputObject.$col | Out-String -Width 9999 | ForEach-Object { $_.Trim() }
                }
            }
        } else {
            foreach ($col in $headers) {
                if ($AllowNulls -or ($InputObject.$col -is [bool] -or ($InputObject.$col))) {
                    $OutputHash.$col = $InputObject.$col
                }
            }
        }
    }
    END {
        return $OutputHash
    }
}

Maybe this is overkill but I hope it Helps