GetType used in PowerShell, difference between variables

Question

What is the difference between variables $a and $b?

$a = (Get-Date).DayOfWeek
$b = Get-Date | Select-Object DayOfWeek

Answer 1

Select-Object returns a custom PSObject with just the properties specified. Even with a single property, you don't get the ACTUAL variable; it is wrapped inside the PSObject.

Instead, do:

Get-Date | Select-Object -ExpandProperty DayOfWeek

That will get you the same result as:

(Get-Date).DayOfWeek

The difference is that if Get-Date returns multiple objects, the pipeline way works better than the parenthetical way as (Get-ChildItem), for example, is an array of items. This has changed in PowerShell v3 and (Get-ChildItem).FullPath works as expected and returns an array of just the full paths.