Get a Header into an Array

Today I was asked how to add a “header” to an array – so you can access its contents via a property like $obj.AccountName instead of by index.

The inspiration came from Import-Csv -Header. Here are three solutions:

1. Explicit – with a Class

class User {
    [String]$Accountname
    User ([String[]]$Username) {
        $this.Accountname = $Username
    }
}

@('myUser', 'YourUser') | ForEach-Object { [User]::new($_) }

2. Implicit – with Select-Object (shorter)

@('myUser', 'YourUser') | Select-Object @{ l = 'Accountname'; e = { $_ } }

3. Implicit – with PSCustomObject

@('myUser', 'YourUser') | ForEach-Object {
    [PSCustomObject]@{ Accountname = $_ }
}

Results

In all three cases the output is an Object[]. The difference: the class version contains strongly-typed User objects, while the other two produce generic PSCustomObject instances.