Access Based Enumeration

This feature is one of the most powerful features of PowerShell, and something most users will utilise despite not being aware of its somewhat convoluted name. What Access Based Enumeration does is allow you to enumerate a single property from an array of objects, itself as an array. That is quite a confusing statement, but easier to understand with an example. Let's say you have a list of Akamai Properties, defined like this:

$Properties = @(
    @{ 
        PropertyName = "Property 1"
        PropertyID = 123456
        PropertyVersion = 1
        GroupID = 111111
        ContractID = "1-2AB34C"
    }
    @{ 
        PropertyName = "Property 2"
        PropertyID = 234567
        PropertyVersion = 12
        GroupID = 222222
        ContractID = "1-2AB34C"
    }
    @{ 
        PropertyName = "Property 3"
        PropertyID = 345678
        PropertyVersion = 39
        GroupID = 333333
        ContractID = "1-2AB34C"
    }
    @{ 
        PropertyName = "Property 4"
        PropertyID = 456789
        PropertyVersion = 112
        GroupID = 444444
        ContractID = "1-2AB34C"
    }
)

and you want to get the names of all of them. You could do this:

$PropertyNames = $Properties | ForEach-Object { $_.PropertyName }
$PropertyNames
 
Property 1
Property 2
Property 3
Property 4

However, what you can do instead is simply:

$Properties.PropertyName
 
Property 1
Property 2
Property 3
Property 4

What this last statement means is:

"Give me the PropertyName property of each object in the $Properties array, and return them as an array."

This process can be used for any property of any object, even if that property is itself an array.

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