How to Create Objects in PowerShell (Custom Objects and Classes)

To create an object in PowerShell, cast a hashtable to [pscustomobject]. The keys become properties, in the order you wrote them:

$employee = [pscustomobject]@{
    Name   = 'Alice Johnson'
    Title  = 'Systems Engineer'
    Office = 'Austin'
    Salary = 98000
}

$employee
"Office: $($employee.Office)"

Output:

Name          Title            Office Salary
----          -----            ------ ------
Alice Johnson Systems Engineer Austin  98000
Office: Austin

That covers most scripts. Below I add methods and computed properties, use classes for typed objects, and turn strings into objects. I ran every example in PowerShell 7.6 and Windows PowerShell 5.1.

Add properties and methods with Add-Member

Add-Member adds a plain value (NoteProperty), a value calculated when you read it (ScriptProperty), or a method (ScriptMethod). Inside the script block, $this is the object:

$order = [pscustomobject]@{ Id = 1042; Price = 20.00 }

$order | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Status -Value 'Open'
$order | Add-Member -MemberType ScriptProperty -Name WithTax -Value { [Math]::Round($this.Price * 1.0825, 2) }
$order | Add-Member -MemberType ScriptMethod -Name Close -Value { $this.Status = 'Closed' }

$order.Price = 100
$order.Close()
"Status: $($order.Status), price with tax: $($order.WithTax)"

Output:

Status: Closed, price with tax: 108.25

WithTax used the new price because a ScriptProperty runs every time you read it. The 8.25% rate is the Texas maximum. Microsoft’s Add-Member documentation lists the other member types.

Use a class for typed objects

A class defines the properties, their types and the methods once. PowerShell then converts or rejects values to match:

class Employee {
    [string]$Name
    [int]$Age

    Employee([string]$name, [int]$age) {
        $this.Name = $name
        $this.Age  = $age
    }

    [string] Describe() { return "$($this.Name), age $($this.Age)" }
}

$alice = [Employee]::new('Alice Johnson', '42')
$alice.Describe()
"Age is stored as $($alice.Age.GetType().Name)"
try { $alice.Age = 'forty' } catch { "Setting Age to 'forty' failed, the class only takes numbers" }

Output:

Alice Johnson, age 42
Age is stored as Int32
Setting Age to 'forty' failed, the class only takes numbers

Classes work in Windows PowerShell 5.1 and later. Use them when many scripts share the same kind of object. Microsoft covers constructors and inheritance in about_Classes.

Convert a string to an object

Delimited text: ConvertFrom-Csv

For comma-separated text, ConvertFrom-Csv makes one object per line, using the first line as property names:

$text = @'
Name,State,Sales
Alice,TX,18250
Bob,CO,12400
'@

$rows = $text | ConvertFrom-Csv
$rows | ForEach-Object { "$($_.Name) in $($_.State) sold $($_.Sales)" }
"Sales is a $($rows[0].Sales.GetType().Name), cast it before doing math"

Output:

Alice in TX sold 18250
Bob in CO sold 12400
Sales is a String, cast it before doing math

Every value is a string, so cast numbers with [int] or [decimal] before you sort or add them.

key = value text: ConvertFrom-StringData

Settings in key = value form become a hashtable, which you can cast to an object:

$config = @'
Server = SQL01
Port = 1433
'@ | ConvertFrom-StringData

"Server: $($config.Server), port: $($config.Port) ($($config.Port.GetType().Name))"
$obj = [pscustomobject]$config
"As an object: $($obj.Server)"

Output:

Server: SQL01, port: 1433 (String)
As an object: SQL01

PowerShell 7 adds -Delimiter for other separators, like a colon. The ConvertFrom-StringData documentation covers escaping backslashes.

Log lines: a regex with named groups

For text with a fixed pattern, like log lines, capture each part with a named group and build the object yourself:

$line = '2026-09-28 ERROR WEB01 Disk D is full'

if ($line -match '^(?<Date>\S+) (?<Level>\S+) (?<Server>\S+) (?<Message>.+)$') {
    $entry = [pscustomobject][ordered]@{
        Date    = [datetime]$Matches.Date
        Level   = $Matches.Level
        Server  = $Matches.Server
        Message = $Matches.Message
    }
}
$entry | Format-List

Output:

Date    : 9/28/2026 12:00:00 AM
Level   : ERROR
Server  : WEB01
Message : Disk D is full

Use [ordered] as shown. Casting $Matches straight to [pscustomobject] works, but the properties come out in a random order.

Skip ConvertFrom-String

Older posts use ConvertFrom-String, which guesses types from the text and runs differently in PowerShell 7:

$person = 'Alice 42' | ConvertFrom-String -PropertyNames Name, Age
"Name: $($person.Name), Age: $($person.Age) stored as a $($person.Age.GetType().Name)"
"ConvertFrom-String is a $((Get-Command -Name ConvertFrom-String).CommandType) here"

Output in PowerShell 7:

Name: Alice, Age: 42 stored as a Byte
ConvertFrom-String is a Function here

Output in Windows PowerShell 5.1:

Name: Alice, Age: 42 stored as a Byte
ConvertFrom-String is a Cmdlet here

It stored the age as a Byte, which fails above 255. In PowerShell 7 it’s a proxy that runs in a hidden Windows PowerShell 5.1 session, like Get-WmiObject. Use the regex method instead.

Copy an object

PSObject.Copy() makes a new object, but properties that hold lists or other objects still point to the same data:

$original = [pscustomobject]@{ Name = 'WEB01'; Tags = [System.Collections.Generic.List[string]]@('web') }

$clone = $original.PSObject.Copy()
$clone.Name = 'WEB02'
$clone.Tags.Add('prod')

"Original name: $($original.Name)"
"Original tags: $($original.Tags -join ', ')"

Output:

Original name: WEB01
Original tags: web, prod

The name stayed separate, but adding a tag to the copy also changed the original. Copy nested data yourself when that matters. Microsoft’s PSCustomObject guide has more patterns.

Frequently Asked Questions

Next steps with PowerShell objects:

• Create an array of objects
• Get the type of an object
• Hashtables and dictionaries
• Convert objects to JSON