PowerShell 7.3 - Issues with Converting Hashtable to JSON and Back with Nested Structures
I'm trying to configure I'm confused about I'm experimenting with I tried several approaches but none seem to work. I am trying to convert a complex hashtable to JSON and then back to a hashtable in PowerShell 7.3, but I am encountering issues with nested structures. The hashtable I am working with contains arrays and nested hashtables, and when I convert it to JSON using `ConvertTo-Json`, the output seems to flatten the structure unexpectedly. Here’s the hashtable I started with: ```powershell $myHashtable = @{ Name = 'Test'; Age = 30; Address = @{ Street = '123 Main St'; City = 'Anytown'; }; Tags = @('tag1', 'tag2', 'tag3'); } ``` When I run the following command, I get this unexpected output: ```powershell $json = $myHashtable | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 5 $json ``` The output is: ```json {"Name":"Test","Age":30,"Address":{"Street":"123 Main St","City":"Anytown"},"Tags":["tag1","tag2","tag3"]} ``` This looks fine for JSON, but when I attempt to convert it back to a hashtable: ```powershell $convertedBack = $json | ConvertFrom-Json ``` I end up with a PSCustomObject instead of a hashtable. The structure remains intact, but I need it back in a hashtable format for further processing. I tried using `Get-Member` to inspect the type of `$convertedBack`, and it shows `PSCustomObject`. Is there a straightforward way to convert this PSCustomObject back into a hashtable? I attempted using `@{}` syntax, but that didn't work as expected. I also considered using `Select-Object`, but that doesn’t seem to apply well with nested objects. Any insights on how to retain the hashtable format or convert the `PSCustomObject` back into a hashtable would be greatly appreciated! I'm also curious if there are best practices for handling complex data structures in PowerShell when dealing with JSON. My development environment is Windows. How would you solve this? I appreciate any insights! I've been using Powershell for about a year now. I'm working with Powershell in a Docker container on Ubuntu 20.04.