I am new to PowerShell, and a senior colleague at work stated I should use explicit data types in PowerShell. For example:
[hashtable]$hash = @{"Color" = "Red"; "Food" = "Pizza"}
[string[]]$stringArray = "a", "b", "c", "d"
[int]$integer = 14
Even with objects:
[System.Diagnostics.Process[]]$processArray = Get-Process
[System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController[]]$services = Get-Service
Is this a requirement? Can someone point out any benefits of using explicit data types in PowerShell?
As always... it depends.
In most cases, you don't need to explicitly specify the data types since if you omit the type the compiler determines it for you. Here an example:
However, there are situations where you want to specify the type. For example: If you assign the return type of a cmdlet to a variable but don't know whether the cmdlet return one ore more elements, you might want to declare the variable to be an array....
In short: I would avoid it if you don't need it due to readability.
I have a different opinion. If you are writing functions in Powershell it is better to specify data types as it is another level of validation on the parameters passed to the function.
In the past I've cast the results of a function call to [array] so that I'm guaranteed to have access to array methods and properties even if there is only a single result.
[array] $Proc = Get-Process Z*
