Unexpected behaviour while populating values in an ordered hash table

Prerequisites

• Write a descriptive title.
• Make sure you are able to repro it on the latest released version
• Search the existing issues.
• Refer to the FAQ.
• Refer to Differences between Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell.

Steps to reproduce

Create an ordered hash table and populate some of its properties with values previously defined in the hash table. Sometimes the values get populated, sometimes not.

    $Api = [ordered]@{
        apiToken = ""
        validUntil = $(Get-Date)
        baseUrl = "https://someUrl.com"
        apiEndPoint = "api/config/v1"
        vaultEndpoint = "$($Api.baseUrl)/$($Api.apiEndPoint)/vault/account"
        tokenEndpoint = "$($Api.baseUrl)/oauth2/token"
        clientId = ""
        clientSecret = ""
    }

Expected behavior

PS> Write-Host $Api.tokenEndpoint
https://someUrl.com/oauth2/token

Actual behavior

PS> Write-Host $Api.tokenEndpoint
oauth2/token

Error details

No response

Environment data

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      7.2.6
PSEdition                      Core
GitCommitId                    7.2.6
OS                             Microsoft Windows 10.0.19044
Platform                       Win32NT
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion              3.0

Visuals

No response

[jhoneill]

IIRC If you run the code with no pre-existing hash table , $hashtable.key will be null. If you run it to recreate an existing hash table, it will use the pre-existing value, not the value you are putting into the new version.

[mklement0]

A simpler and more robust workaround, as also shown in the linked issue, is to use aux. variables:

$dict =
  [ordered] @{
    url = ($url = 'example.com')
    endpoint = "$url/api/config"
  }