Get-FormatData doesn't report formatting data for some types for which formatting data ships with PowerShell.

I haven’t looked into the logic behind which types’ formatting data isn’t being reported, but two examples are below.

A counter example is Get-FormatData System.Management.Automation.AliasInfo, which works as expected.

Steps to reproduce

Get-FormatData System.IO.DirectoryInfo, System.IO.FileInfo

Expected behavior

[System.Management.Automation.ExtendedTypeDefinition] instances describing the formatting, as usual.

Actual behavior

No output is produced; $? indicates $True.

Yet, formatting data is clearly in effect.

In Windows PowerShell, it can be discovered as follows:

Select-String -List System.IO.DirectoryInfo, System.IO.FileInfo $PSHOME/*.ps1xml 

Environment data

PowerShell Core v6.0.0-beta.3 on macOS 10.12.5
PowerShell Core v6.0.0-beta.3 on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
PowerShell Core v6.0.0-beta.3 on Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bit; v10.0.14393)
Windows PowerShell v5.1.15063.413 on Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bit; v10.0.15063)

[PaulHigin]

Yes, you are right. I think your code is the correct way.

[lzybkr]

In the abstract - some format data properties were missing before 5.1. If those properties were non-null, then the format data returned by Get-FormatData couldn’t have been used correctly, so those types are not returned.

To be concrete, look at the implementations of PSControl.CompatibleWithOldPowerShell

Briefly, I think GroupBy, SelectCondition, and CustomControl are the items that trigger not getting returned by Get-FormatData unless you specify -PowerShellVersion 5.1.