How to: Update List Items

Article
10/20/2016

Applies to: SharePoint Foundation 2010

This programming task shows how to use the UpdateListItems method of the Lists Web service to update items in a list through a Microsoft Windows Forms application.

Use an XmlElement object to create a Batch element in Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) that can contain multiple Method elements, and use the UpdateListItems(String, XmlNode) method to post the methods and update items.

Note

The number of list items that you can modify through the UpdateListItems method in a single batch is limited to 160.

The Cmd attribute of each Method element determines the operation that is performed on an item by specifying one of the following values:

Delete -- Delete an item.
New -- Create an item.
Update -- Modify an item.
Move -- Move an item.

Procedures

Before you begin, create a Windows Forms application in Microsoft Visual Studio. For information about setting a Web reference to a SharePoint Foundation Web service, see Web Service Guidelines.

To add code to update list items

Open Form1 in Design view, open the Toolbox, and then drag a Button control onto the form.

Double-click the Button control to display the Code Editor, and then add the following lines of code to the Button1_Click event handler.

'Declare and initialize a variable for the Lists Web service.
Dim listService As New sitesWebServiceLists.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://MyServer/sites/MySiteCollection/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx"

'Get Name attribute values (GUIDs) for list and view. 
Dim ndListView As System.Xml.XmlNode = listService.GetListAndView("MyList", "")
Dim strListID As String = ndListView.ChildNodes(0).Attributes("Name").Value
Dim strViewID As String = ndListView.ChildNodes(1).Attributes("Name").Value

'Create an XmlDocument object and construct a Batch element and its 
'attributes. Note that an empty ViewName parameter causes the method 
'to use the default view. 
Dim doc As New System.Xml.XmlDocument()
Dim batchElement As System.Xml.XmlElement = doc.CreateElement("Batch")
batchElement.SetAttribute("OnError", "Continue")
batchElement.SetAttribute("ListVersion", "1")
batchElement.SetAttribute("ViewName", strViewID)

'Specify methods for the batch post using CAML. To update or delete, 
'specify the ID of the item, and to update or add, specify 
'the value to place in the specified columns.
batchElement.InnerXml = "<Method ID='1' Cmd='Update'>" +
   "<Field Name='ID'>6</Field>" +
   "<Field Name='Title'>Modified sixth item</Field></Method>" +
   "<Method ID='2' Cmd='Update'><Field Name='ID'>7</Field>" +
   "<Field Name='Title'>Modified seventh item</Field></Method>" +
   "<Method ID='3' Cmd='Delete'><Field Name='ID'>5</Field>" +
   "</Method><Method ID='4' Cmd='New'>" +
   "<Field Name='Title'>Added item</Field></Method>"

'Update list items. This example uses the list GUID, 
'which is recommended, but the list display name will also work.
listService.UpdateListItems(strListID, batchElement)

/*Declare and initialize a variable for the Lists Web service.*/
sitesWebServiceLists.Lists listService = new sitesWebServiceLists.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://MyServer/sites/MySiteCollection/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx";

/*Get Name attribute values (GUIDs) for list and view. */
System.Xml.XmlNode ndListView = listService.GetListAndView("MyList", "");
string strListID = ndListView.ChildNodes[0].Attributes["Name"].Value;
string strViewID = ndListView.ChildNodes[1].Attributes["Name"].Value;

/*Create an XmlDocument object and construct a Batch element and its
attributes. Note that an empty ViewName parameter causes the method to use the default view. */
System.Xml.XmlDocument doc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
System.Xml.XmlElement batchElement = doc.CreateElement("Batch");
batchElement.SetAttribute("OnError", "Continue");
batchElement.SetAttribute("ListVersion", "1");
batchElement.SetAttribute("ViewName", strViewID);

/*Specify methods for the batch post using CAML. To update or delete, 
specify the ID of the item, and to update or add, specify 
the value to place in the specified column.*/
batchElement.InnerXml = "<Method ID='1' Cmd='Update'>" +
   "<Field Name='ID'>6</Field>" +
   "<Field Name='Title'>Modified sixth item</Field></Method>" +
   "<Method ID='2' Cmd='Update'><Field Name='ID'>7</Field>" +
   "<Field Name='Title'>Modified seventh item</Field></Method>" +
   "<Method ID='3' Cmd='Delete'><Field Name='ID'>5</Field>" +
   "</Method><Method ID='4' Cmd='New'>" +
   "<Field Name='Title'>Added item</Field></Method>";

/*Update list items. This example uses the list GUID, which is recommended, 
but the list display name will also work.*/
try
{
   listService.UpdateListItems(strListID, batchElement);
}
catch (SoapServerException ex)
{
   MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}

Note

Posting the UpdateListItems method silently fails if a specified item does not exist. The identifier (ID) for a deleted item is maintained after a delete operation. Consequently, the example deletes the fifth item in the list, but number 5 is not reassigned as the ID for another item.

On the Debug menu, click Start Debugging, or press F5, to test the form.

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How to: Update List Items

Procedures

To add code to update list items

Additional resources