How to: Return List Items

Article
05/05/2014

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This programming task shows how to create a Windows Form that uses the GetListItems method of the Lists Web service to return items from a list.

Procedures

Before you begin, create a Windows Application as described in Getting Started with Programmatically Customizing a SharePoint Web Site in Visual Studio. For information about setting a Web reference to a Windows SharePoint Services Web service, see Web Service Guidelines.

To add code to display the collection of list items

After creating a Windows Application project and adding a Web reference, open Form1 in Design view, open the Toolbox, and then drag a Label control and a Button control onto the form.
Right-click the Label1 control, click Properties, and then delete the value Label1 from the Text property of the control.

Double-click the button to display the Code Editor, and add the following lines of code to the Click event handler:

'Declare and initialize a variable for the Lists Web service.
Dim listService As New Web_Reference.Lists()

'Authenticate the current user by passing their default 
'credentials to the Web service from the system credential cache.
listService.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials

'Set the Url property of the service for the path to a subsite.
listService.Url = "http://Server_Name/Subsite_Name/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx"

'Instantiate an XmlDocument object.
Dim xmlDoc As New System.Xml.XmlDocument()

'Assign values to the string parameters of the GetListItems method, 'using GUIDs for the listName and viewName variables. For listName, 'using the list display name will also work, but using the list GUID 
'is recommended. For viewName, only the view GUID can be used. 
'Using an empty string for viewName causes the default view 
'to be used.
Dim listName As String = "{17991794-81BB-494F-9910-CFBF1093A7CF}"
Dim viewName As String = "{7137FFF8-48FF-4C69-8C76-0E3BBD1EA7F9}"
Dim rowLimit As String = "150"

'Use the CreateElement method of the document object to create 'elements for the parameters that use XML.
Dim query As System.Xml.XmlElement = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Query")
Dim viewFields As System.Xml.XmlElement = xmlDoc.CreateElement("ViewFields")
Dim queryOptions As System.Xml.XmlElement = xmlDoc.CreateElement("QueryOptions")

'To specify values for the parameter elements (optional), assign CAML fragments to the InnerXml property of each element.
query.InnerXml = "<Where><Gt><FieldRef Name=""ID"" />" + "<Value Type=""Counter"">3</Value></Gt></Where>"
viewFields.InnerXml = "<FieldRef Name=""Title"" />"
queryOptions.InnerXml = ""

'Declare an XmlNode object and initialize it with the XML response 'from the GetListItems method. The last parameter specifies 
'the GUID of the Web site containing the list. Setting it to 
'Nothing causes the Web site specified by the Url property 
'to be used.
Dim nodeListItems As System.Xml.XmlNode = listService.GetListItems(listName, viewName, query, viewFields, rowLimit, queryOptions, Nothing)

'Loop through each node in the XML response and display each item.
Dim listItem As System.Xml.XmlNode
For Each listItem In  nodeListItems
   label1.Text += listItem.OuterXml
Next listItem

/*Declare and initialize a variable for the Lists Web service.*/
Web_Reference.Lists listService = new Web_Reference.Lists();

/*Authenticate the current user by passing their default 
credentials to the Web service from the system credential cache.*/
listService.Credentials = 
    System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

/*Set the Url property of the service for the path to a subsite.*/
listService.Url = 
    "http://Server_Name/Subsite_Name/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx";

// Instantiate an XmlDocument object
System.Xml.XmlDocument xmlDoc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();

/* Assign values to the string parameters of the GetListItems method, using GUIDs for the listName and viewName variables. For listName, using the list display name will also work, but using the list GUID is recommended. For viewName, only the view GUID can be used. Using an empty string for viewName causes the default view 
to be used.*/
string listName = "{17991794-81BB-494F-9910-CFBF1093A7CF}";
string viewName = "{7137FFF8-48FF-4C69-8C76-0E3BBD1EA7F9}";
string rowLimit = "150";

/*Use the CreateElement method of the document object to create elements for the parameters that use XML.*/
System.Xml.XmlElement query = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Query");
System.Xml.XmlElement viewFields = 
    xmlDoc.CreateElement("ViewFields");
System.Xml.XmlElement queryOptions = 
    xmlDoc.CreateElement("QueryOptions");

/*To specify values for the parameter elements (optional), assign CAML fragments to the InnerXml property of each element.*/
query.InnerXml = "<Where><Gt><FieldRef Name=\"ID\" />" +
    "<Value Type=\"Counter\">3</Value></Gt></Where>";
viewFields.InnerXml = "<FieldRef Name=\"Title\" />";
queryOptions.InnerXml = "";

/* Declare an XmlNode object and initialize it with the XML response from the GetListItems method. The last parameter specifies the GUID of the Web site containing the list. Setting it to null causes the Web site specified by the Url property to be used.*/
System.Xml.XmlNode nodeListItems = 
    listService.GetListItems
    (listName, viewName,query,viewFields,rowLimit,queryOptions,null);

/*Loop through each node in the XML response and display each item.*/
foreach (System.Xml.XmlNode listItem in nodeListItems)
{
    label1.Text += listItem.OuterXml;
}

Note

You must provide your own values for the listName, viewName, and rowLimit variables that are used in the example.

On the Debug menu, click Start to test the form. Click Button1 to display the list items from the specified list.

How to: Return List Items

Procedures

To add code to display the collection of list items

Additional resources