Strongly type PS custom object properties - powershell

Question

I have been using hash tables to return complex data from functions, and it has worked well, but I would like to have the keys strongly typed, since I have booleans, strings, arrays of strings, ordered dictionaries and such in the returned hash tables. So, given something like this
[hashtable]$hashtable = #{
one = 1
two = "two"
}
I have the issue that the type of each key is weakly typed. I want to basically do this
[hashtable]$hashtable = #{
[int]one = 1
[string]two = "two"
}
But that's not valid code. So I thought I could do this
[psCustomObject]$object = [psCustomObject]#{
[int]one = 1
[string]two = "two"
}
But that's invalid too. I find this a bit ugly, and it also doesn't work
$object = New-Object -typeName:PSObject
$object | Add-Member -memberType:int -name:'one' -value:1
$object | Add-Member -memberType:string -name:'two' -value:'two'
So, am I SOL and there is no way, or no elegant way, to create a custom object with strongly typed properties?

Answer 1

Inside the hashtable literal you'll want to type-cast the value expression instead:
PS C:\> $object = [PSCustomObject]#{
one = [int]1
two = [string]"two"
}
PS C:\> $object|gm -MemberType NoteProperty
TypeName: System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
one NoteProperty int one=1
two NoteProperty string two=two
This will, however, not prevent anyone from storing a non-integer or non-string in any of the properties - psobject property are simply not strongly typed.
If you want type safety for properties you'll need to create a new type with the class keyword:
class MyOneTwo
{
[int]$One
[string]$Two
MyOneTwo(){}
MyOneTwo([int]$one, [string]$two){
$this.One = $one
$this.Two = $two
}
}
# Create instances with ::new(), New-Object or a cast:
$object = [MyOneTwo]::new(1,"2")
$object = New-Object MyOneTwo -Property #{ One = 1; Two = "2" }
$object = [MyOneTwo]#{ One = 1; Two = "2" }