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

Starting from PowerShell v5, you can use Class. The problem with psobject.Copy() is, if you update the cloned object, then your template object's referenced properties will be also updated.

example:

function testTemplates
{
    $PSCustomObjectTemplate = New-Object PSCustomObject -Property @{
        List1 = [System.Collections.Generic.List[string]]@()  # will be updated in template
        String1 = "value1" # will not be updated in template
        Bool1 = $false # will not be updated in template
    }

    $objectFromPSTemplate1 = $PSCustomObjectTemplate.psobject.Copy()
    $objectFromPSTemplate1.List1.Add("Value")
    $objectFromPSTemplate1.String1 = "value2" 
    $objectFromPSTemplate.Bool1 = $true 

    # $PSCustomObjectTemplate IS updated, so CANNOT be used as a clean template!
    $PSCustomObjectTemplate

    Class ClassTemplate {
        [System.Collections.Generic.List[string]]$List1 = @() # will not be updated in template
        [string]$String1 = "value1" # will not be updated in template
        [bool]$Bool1 = $false # will not be updated in template
    }
    $objectFromClassTemplate = [ClassTemplate]::new()
    $objectFromClassTemplate.List1.Add("Value")
    $objectFromClassTemplate.String1 = "value2"
    $objectFromClassTemplate.Bool1 = $true

    # $ClassTemplate IS NOT updated, so can be used as a clean template!
    [ClassTemplate]::new()
}

testTemplates

PS C:\Windows\system32> testTemplates

List1   String1 Bool1
-----   ------- -----
{Value} value1  False       

-> Template from PSCustomObject is updated (referenced property -List1)

List1   String1 Bool1
-----   ------- -----
{}      value1  False       

-> Template from Class is safe