As well as describing the connection, the web service proxy object exposes methods used to interact with the web service.
Get-Member can be used to view the methods. The methods beginning with Get are shown following:
PS> $periodicTable | Get-Member Get* -MemberType Method | Select-Object Name, Definition Name Definition ---- ---------- GetAtomicNumber string GetAtomicNumber(string ElementName) GetAtomicNumberAsync voidGetAtomicNumberAsync(string ElementName), ... GetAtomicWeight string GetAtomicWeight(string ElementName) GetAtomicWeightAsync voidGetAtomicWeightAsync(string ElementName), ... GetAtoms string GetAtoms() GetAtomsAsync void GetAtomsAsync(), ... GetElementSymbol string GetElementSymbol(string ElementName) GetElementSymbolAsync void GetElementSymbolAsync(string ElementName), ... GetHashCodeintGetHashCode() GetLifetimeServiceSystem.ObjectGetLifetimeService() GetType type GetType()
The GetAtoms method will list the names of each of the elements in the periodic table. The name of an element can be used to retrieve simple information using the other methods, for example:
PS> $periodicTable.GetAtomicNumber('Zirconium')
<NewDataSet>
<Table>
<AtomicNumber>40</AtomicNumber>
<ElementName>Zirconium</ElementName>
<Symbol>Zr</Symbol>
<AtomicWeight>91.22</AtomicWeight>
<BoilingPoint>3851</BoilingPoint>
<IonisationPotential>6.8500000000000005</IonisationPotential>
<EletroNegativity>1.22</EletroNegativity>
<AtomicRadius>1.45</AtomicRadius>
<MeltingPoint>2125</MeltingPoint>
<Density>6511</Density>
</Table>
</NewDataSet>
As this interface does not define structured types, the value returned is an XML string. PowerShell can use the XML type accelerator to turn this into an object:
PS> ([Xml]$periodicTable.GetAtomicNumber('Einsteinium')).NewDataSet.Table
AtomicNumber : 99
ElementName : Einsteinium
Symbol : Es
AtomicWeight : 255
BoilingPoint : 1500
EletroNegativity : 1.2
MeltingPoint : 860
The property values, such as the MeltingPoint, are strings and would need to be converted to numeric values if there was a need to compare values:
PS> $hydrogen = ([Xml]$periodicTable.GetAtomicNumber('Hydrogen')).NewDataSet.Table
$hydrogen.MeltingPoint.GetType()
IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType
-------- -------- ---- --------
True True String System.Object