How to create new clone instance of PSObject object

Question

I want to create new instance of my custom PSObject. I have a Button object created as PSObject and I want to create new object Button2 which has the same members as Button

Answer 1

Put this in a Utility class or define it in your current section

function clone($obj)
{
    $newobj = New-Object PsObject
    $obj.psobject.Properties | % {Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -InputObject $newobj -Name $_.Name -Value $_.Value}
    return $newobj
}

Usage:

$clonedobj = clone $obj

Answer 2

Easiest way is to use the Copy Method of a PsObject ==> $o2 = $o1.PsObject.Copy()

$o1 = New-Object -TypeName PsObject -Property @{
    Fld1 = 'Fld1';
    Fld2 = 'Fld2';
    Fld3 = 'Fld3'}

$o2 = $o1.PsObject.Copy()

$o2 | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Fld4 -Value 'Fld4'
$o2.Fld1 = 'Changed_Fld'

$o1 | Format-List
$o2 | Format-List

Output:

Fld3 : Fld3
Fld2 : Fld2
Fld1 : Fld1

Fld3 : Fld3
Fld2 : Fld2
Fld1 : Changed_Fld
Fld4 : Fld4

Answer 3

Indeed there is no clone method! However where there is a will...

$o = New-Object PsObject -Property @{ prop1='a' ; prop2='b' }
$o2 = New-Object PsObject
$o.psobject.properties | % {
    $o2 | Add-Member -MemberType $_.MemberType -Name $_.Name -Value $_.Value
}
$o.prop1 = 'newvalue'

$o
$o2

Output:

prop2     prop1                                                                 
-----     -----                                                                 
b         newvalue                                                              
b         a      

Answer 4

The Better way i found out was to use ConvertTo-Json and ConvertFrom-Json. Ee - Suppose you want to clone a object $toBeClonedObject, just run below code to clone.

$clonedObject = $toBeClonedObject | ConvertTo-Json | ConvertFrom-Json

Answer 5

Another possibility:

 $o1 = New-Object PsObject -Property @{ prop1='a' ; prop2='b' }
 $o2 = $o1 | select *
 $o2.prop1 = 'newvalue'
 $o1.prop1
 $o2.prop1
 a
 newvalue

Answer 6

Here's a [pscustomobject] example with the hidden .psobject.copy():

$a = [pscustomobject]@{message='hi'}
$a.message
hi

$b = $a.psobject.copy()
$b.message
hi

$a.message = 'there'
$a.message
there

$b.message
hi