Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is bundled with lists and libraries. A list is a collection of information, including announcement, discussion board, and calendar. A library, on the other hand, is a location on a SharePoint site where we can create, collect, update, and manage files, including document library, picture library, and form library. On top of lists and libraries is the Windows SharePoint Services object model that consists of more than few assemblies and namespaces - that can used to programmatically interact with our SharePoint site components, including SharePoint lists and libraries.

Below is the list of assemblies:

Another component that we need to understand before writing our first line of code is the server-side object model structure of SharePoint site allied to lists and libraries. The following table shows the SharePoint site object hierarchy in relation to the collection and objects of the Microsoft.SharePoint namespace.

Having discussed some introductory concepts, we could now easily comprehend the following codes that programmatically insert and retrieve SharePoint list data.

Data Insertion

using (SPSite spsite = new SPSite(http://SPS01))

{

using (SPWeb spweb = spsite.OpenWeb())

{

spweb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

SPList splist = spweb.Lists["Custom List"];

SPListItem splistitem = splist.Items.Add();

splistitem["Title"] = "Paul Joseph Adame";

splistitem["First_x0020_Name"] = "Luke Martin";

splistitem["Last_x0020_Name"] = "Adame";

splistitem.Update();

}

}

Data Retrieval

using (SPSite spsite = new SPSite("http://SPS01"))

{

using (SPWeb spweb = spsite.OpenWeb())

{

spweb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

SPSiteDataQuery spsitedataquery = new SPSiteDataQuery();

spsitedataquery.Lists = "<Lists BaseType='0'/>";

spsitedataquery.Query = "<Where><Gt><FieldRef Name='ID' /><Value Type='Number'>0</Value></Gt></Where>";

spsitedataquery.Webs = "<Webs Scope='SiteCollection' />";

spsitedataquery.ViewFields = "<FieldRef Name='Title' /><FieldRef Name='First_x0020_Name' /><FieldRef Name='Last_x0020_Name' />";

spsitedataquery.RowLimit = 10;

DataTable datatable = spweb.GetSiteData(spsitedataquery);

gvwList.DataSource = datatable;

gvwList.DataBind();

}

}

Notice that a Collaborative Application Markup Language (CALM) is being passed to the query property of the SPSiteDataQuery. CALM is an XML-based language that is used in Windows SharePoint Services to define fields and views. In our case, we use CALM to define queries against list data. Below is the query schema:

Thanks.