reference to datetime in powershell-CodePudding

$var = "01/01/2020"
$date1 = Get-Date
$date2 = Get-Date
Write-Host $date1.GetType().Name
Write-Host $date2.GetType().Name
$dates = @(
    @('date1', [ref]$date1),
    @('date2', [ref]$date2)
)
foreach($date in $dates) {
    $date[1].Value = Get-Date ([DateTime]::ParseExact($var, 'dd/MM/yyyy', $null)) -Format "dd/MM/yyyy"
}
Write-Host $date1
Write-Host $date2
Write-Host $date1.GetType().Name
Write-Host $date2.GetType().Name

output :

DateTime
DateTime
01/01/2020
01/01/2020
String
String

I do not understand why my dates (date1 and date2) went from DateTime to String ? How do I fix it ? because the next step in my code is to compare date1 and date2 (I want to compare dates not string obviously)

Help is much appreciate

CodePudding user response：

This is the problem

 $date[1].Value = Get-Date ([DateTime]::ParseExact($var, 'dd/MM/yyyy', $null)) -Format "dd/MM/yyyy"

Remove the -Format "dd/MM/yyyy" from your code.

You are parsing a string to a date using [DateTime]::ParseExact then immediately convert it back to a string using -Format "dd/MM/yyyy".

You just need

$date[1].Value = Get-Date ([DateTime]::ParseExact($var, 'dd/MM/yyyy', $null))