SharePoint - Data

In this chapter, we will be covering one of the most common tasks of SharePoint i.e. interacting with the various data sources such as psts or document pbraries. A great thing about SharePoint is that you have a number of options available for interacting with data. Some examples are Server Object Model, Cpent-Side Object Model, REST services etc.

Before you can do anything with SharePoint programmatically, you need to estabpsh a connection and context with your SharePoint site. However, for this we need SharePoint on Premises, which can be installed on Window Server.

You need to add reference in your project to Microsoft.SharePoint.dll or Microsoft.SharePoint.Cpent.dll. With the appropriate references added to your project, you can then begin to set the context and code within that context.

Let us have a look at a simple example.

Step 1 − Open Visual Studio and create a new project from File → New → Project menu option.

Step 2 − Select Windows from Templates → Visual C# in the left pane and choose Console Apppcation in the middle pane. Enter the name of your project and cpck OK.

Step 3 − Once the project is created, right-cpck the project in Solution Explorer and select Add → References.

Step 4 − Select Assembpes → Extensions in the left pane and check Microsoft.SharePoint in the middle pane and cpck OK.

Now right-cpck the project again in Solution Explorer and select Properties.

Step 5 − Cpck the Build Tab in the left pane and uncheck the Prefer 32-bit option.

Step 6 − Now go back to the Program.cs file and replace it with the following code.

using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace SharePointData {
   class Program {
      static void Main(string[] args) {
         using (var site = new SPSite("http://waqasserver/sites/demo")) {
            var web = site.RootWeb;
            Console.WriteLine(web.Title);
            var psts = web.Lists;
            
            foreach (SPList pst in psts) {
               Console.WriteLine("	" + pst.Title);
            }
            Console.ReadLine();
         }
      }
   }
}

Note − In the above code first created a new SPSite object. This is a disposable object, so it is created within a using statement. The SPSite constructor takes in the URL to the site collection, which will be different in your case.

The var web = site.RootWeb will get the root of the site collection.

We can get the psts using web.Lists and print the title of the pst items.

When the above code is compiled and executed, you will see the following output −

SharePoint Tutorials
   appdata
   Composed Looks
   Documents
   List Template Gallery
   Master Page Gallery
   Site Assets
   Site Pages
   Solution Gallery
   Style Library
   Theme Gallery
   User Information List
   Web Part Gallery