Pro Windows PowerShell

1.3. Type Literals

The PowerShell language allows us to access types by using a special syntax called type literals. A type literal is just a type name enclosed in brackets. At their very simplest, type literals return the underlying .NET System.Type object instance:

PS C:\> [System.Int32]

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     Int32                                    System.ValueType


PS C:\> [System.String]
IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     String                                   System.Object


PS C:\> [System.Diagnostics.Process]

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     False    Process                                  System.Compon...

We do not really need to repeat that System namespace prefix all the time. Most of the types that we work with ...