Equivalent to C#'s "using" keyword in powershell?

Question

When I use another object in the .net-Framework in C# I can save a lot of typing by using the using directive.

using FooCompany.Bar.Qux.Assembly.With.Ridiculous.Long.Namespace.I.Really.Mean.It;  ...     var blurb = new Thingamabob();  ... 

So is there a way in Powershell to do something similiar? I'm accessing a lot of .net objects and am not happy of having to type

 $blurb = new-object FooCompany.Bar.Qux.Assembly.With.Ridiculous.Long.Namespace.I.Really.Mean.It.Thingamabob; 

all the time.

Answer 1

There's really nothing at the namespace level like that. I often assign commonly used types to variables and then instantiate them:

$thingtype = [FooCompany.Bar.Qux.Assembly.With.Ridiculous.Long.Namespace.I.Really.Mean.It.Thingamabob]; $blurb = New-Object $thingtype.FullName 

Probably not worth it if the type won't be used repeatedly, but I believe it's the best you can do.

Answer 2

PowerShell 5.0 (included in WMF5 or Windows 10 and up), adds the using namespace construct to the language. You can use it in your script like so:

#Require -Version 5.0 using namespace FooCompany.Bar.Qux.Assembly.With.Ridiculous.Long.Namespace.I.Really.Mean.It $blurb = [Thingamabob]::new() 

(The #Require statement on the first line is not necessary to use using namespace, but it will prevent the script from running in PS 4.0 and below where using namespace is a syntax error.)