When Add(ing)-Type, choose your method signatures wisely

Powershell V2 has some great new features, in particular Add-Type and Remoting features are likely to be quite popular and work together without much issue. That said, there are edge cases which illustrate how the types returned from remoting calls. The following script demonstrates the issue

$csCode = @"
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
namespace Demo {
    public static class D
    {
        public static int Add(int a, int b)
        {
            return a + b;
        }
        public static int AddArray(int[] ints)
        {
            return ints.Sum();
        }
        public static int AddEnumerable(IEnumerable<object> ints)
        {
            return ints.Cast<int>().Sum();
        }
        public static int AddEnumerable(IEnumerable<int> ints)
        {
            return ints.Sum();
        }
    }
}
"@

Add-Type -TypeDefinition $csCode -Language CSharpVersion3
$oneRemote = Invoke-Command -ComputerName localhost  -ScriptBlock { return 1 }
$listRemote = Invoke-Command -ComputerName localhost  -ScriptBlock { return (1,2,3) }
$one = &{return 1}
if ($one -eq $oneRemote)
{
    Write-Host "1 == 1"
}

$v =  [Demo.D]::Add($one,$oneRemote)
Write-output "One + OneRemote = $v"  ; $v=$null
$v = [Demo.D]::AddArray(($one,$oneRemote))
Write-output "One + OneRemote via array =  $v" ; $v=$null

$v = [Demo.D]::AddArray($listRemote)
Write-output "One + OneRemote via remote array =  $v" ; $v=$null

$v = [Demo.D]::AddEnumerable((1,2,3,4))
Write-output "One + OneRemote via local IEnumerable =  $v" ; $v=$null

$v = [Demo.D]::AddEnumerable($listRemote)
Write-output "One + OneRemote via remote IEnumerable =  $v"; $v=$null



$oneRemote | Get-Member

The output from the above is

1 == 1
One + OneRemote = 2
One + OneRemote via array =  2
One + OneRemote via remote array =  6
One + OneRemote via local IEnumerable =  10 # so far as expected

 
Exception calling "AddEnumerable" with "1" argument(s): "Specified cast is not valid."
At typeDemo.ps1:49 char:29
+ $v = [Demo.D]::AddEnumerable <<<< ($listRemote)

   TypeName: System.Int32

Name               MemberType   Definition                                                                                                                                                                       
----               ----------   ----------                                                                                                                                                                       
CompareTo          Method       System.Int32 CompareTo(Object value)
Equals             Method       System.Boolean Equals(Object obj), System.Boolean Equals(Int32 obj)                                                                                                              
GetHashCode        Method       System.Int32 GetHashCode()                                                                                                                                                       
GetType            Method       System.Type GetType()                                                                                                                                                            
GetTypeCode        Method       System.TypeCode GetTypeCode()                                                                                                                                                    
ToString           Method       System.String ToString()
PSComputerName     NoteProperty System.String PSComputerName=localhost                                                                                                                                           
PSShowComputerName NoteProperty System.Boolean PSShowComputerName=True                                                                                                                                           
RunspaceId         NoteProperty System.Guid RunspaceId=e0dc5c05-c87d-41ad-afe0-16bc1b711f08                                                                                                                      

What’s happening under the covers is that the PowerShell reporting infrastructure is returning a PSObject. By inspecting the type via Get-Member you can see that it has some extra NoteProperties. To PowerShell and .Net methods that expect integers and arrays of integers, the object looks and behaves like it should. But if your Add-Types use a more LINQ style approach, which expects an IEnumerable<T>, the PowerShell type system doesn’t properly convert the adapted type to its native underlying type and runtime exceptions are the result.