Random outpourings of a software developer
One day I had lost the connection to the TFS server. This meant that my project could not access version control. Once I synced up again and checked in my changes some of the dll’s in the bindebug folder had been included in TFS. This prevented me from building with the above error until these were excluded.
Here is an explanation of automatic properties in C# 3.0.
Basically if you declare a property as:
public int FooBar {get; set;}
then the compiler will create the private storage for you.
If you do anything different then it will leave it to you.
Here is an explanation of extension methods.
This code will create the list with all of the columns from the Content Type and all of the columns from the BDC Entity. It then updates the default view of the list to show all of these.
This code does use one class that microsoft has marked as do not use in your own application. But since it is the only way that I have found to get this to work….
Identifying the required using clauses is left as an exercise to the reader.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.Office.Server;
using Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.MetadataModel;
using Microsoft.Office.Server.ApplicationRegistry.Infrastructure;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls;
namespace AddSharePointBDCListNS
{
/// <summary>
/// This console application will add a SharePoint list to a site based upon a content type and a bdc entity.
/// The content type will contain the key field for the bdc data so that the bdc data can be removed and replaced.
/// </summary>
class Program
{
/// <summary>
///
/// </summary>
/// <param name=”args”></param>
static void Main(string[] args)
{
if (args.Length != 8)
{
Console.WriteLine(“AddSharePointBDCList http://site:1234 listName ssp contentType CoreInstance core.Trade_BigList_v TradeRef Trade”);
}
else
{
try
{
AddSharePointBDCList(args[0], args[1], args[2], args[3], args[4], args[5], args[6], args[7]);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex);
}
}
}
static string ObtainBdcFields(string application,
string entity,
string entityTitle)
{
LobSystemInstance instance = ApplicationRegistry.GetLobSystemInstanceByName(application);
Entity requiredEntity = instance.GetEntities()[entity];
List<string> rawField = new List<string>();
foreach (Field field in requiredEntity.GetFinderView().Fields)
{
rawField.Add(field.Name);
}
rawField.Sort();
StringBuilder fieldList = new StringBuilder();
bool isFirst = true;
foreach (string field in rawField)
{
if (!isFirst)
{
fieldList.Append(“:”);
}
isFirst = false;
fieldList.Append(field);
}
return fieldList.ToString();
}
/// <remarks>
/// This is serious black belt sharepoint. It required a lot of trial and error to get this far.
/// I would like to be able to simply pass the application and the entity but have run out of time.
/// </remarks>
///<summary>
///<param name=”siteUrl”></param>
///
///</summary>
static void AddSharePointBDCList(string siteUrl,
string listName,
string ssp,
string contentType,
string bdcSystemInstance,
string bdcEntity,
string bdcField,
string bdcDisplayField)
{
SPSite site;
try
{
site = new SPSite(siteUrl);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new Exception(“Unable to find site (” + siteUrl + “)”, ex);
}
SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();
SPContentType newCT;
try
{
newCT = web.ContentTypes[contentType];
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new Exception(“Unable to find content type (” + contentType + “)”, ex);
}
// I have moved these here since it will prevent a list being created if any of the data is wrong.
try
{
SqlSessionProvider.Instance().SetSharedResourceProviderToUse(ssp);
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
throw new Exception(“Unable to find SSP (” + ssp + “)”, ex);
}
string rawFields;
try
{
rawFields = ObtainBdcFields(bdcSystemInstance, bdcEntity, bdcDisplayField);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new Exception(“There is something wrong with at least one of the following:: bdcSystemInstance: ” + bdcSystemInstance + ” bdcEntity: ” + bdcEntity + ” bdcDisplayField: ” + bdcDisplayField , ex);
}
/* At this point we have all of the data that we need to recreate the lists! */
// You can’t create a list based upon a user-defined content type but you can do this:
// Add a generic list
Guid listGuid = web.Lists.Add(listName, listName, SPListTemplateType.GenericList);
// … Why that did’nt return the list I’ll never know, use the guid instead
SPList list = web.Lists[listGuid];
// Now mess with the content types:
SPContentType old = list.ContentTypes[0];
list.ContentTypes.Add(newCT);
list.ContentTypes.Delete(old.Id);
list.Update();
// Now add the missing fields to the view.
SPView view = list.DefaultView;
foreach( SPField field in newCT.Fields)
{
if (!view.ViewFields.Exists(field.InternalName))
{
view.ViewFields.Add(field);
}
}
view.Update();
/* I think that this is now minimal */
const string contentTemplate = @”<Field Type=’BusinessData’
DisplayName='{0}’
Required=’FALSE’
StaticName='{0}’
BaseRenderingType=’Text’
Name='{0}’
RowOrdinal=’0′
SystemInstance='{1}’
Entity='{2}’
BdcField='{3}’
Profile=’/_layouts/ProfileRedirect.aspx?Application={1}&Entity={2}&ItemId=’
HasActions=’True’
RelatedField='{4}’
RelatedFieldWssStaticName='{4}’
AddFieldOption=’AddToDefaultContentType, AddFieldToDefaultView’
/>”;
string fieldContent = string.Format(contentTemplate,
bdcDisplayField, //0
bdcSystemInstance, //1
bdcEntity, //2
bdcField, //3
bdcEntity.Replace(“.”,”_x002e_”) + “_ID” //4
);
string fieldName = list.Fields.AddFieldAsXml(fieldContent);
list.Update();
// … You would think that this would be enough, you now need to convince the bdc column to save the
// bdc specific details.
BusinessDataField busField = list.Fields[fieldName] as BusinessDataField;
busField.SystemInstanceName = bdcSystemInstance;
busField.EntityName = bdcEntity;
busField.BdcFieldName = bdcField;
string[] names = rawFields.Split(new char[1] { ‘:’ });
busField.SetSecondaryFieldsNames(names);
busField.Profile = string.Format(“/_layouts/ProfileRedirect.aspx?Application={0}&Entity={1}&ItemId=”, bdcSystemInstance, bdcEntity);
busField.HasActions=true;
busField.Update();
list.Update();
// Lets see if the bdc fields can now be added…
foreach (SPField field in list.Fields)
{
if (!view.ViewFields.Exists(field.InternalName))
{
if (!field.Hidden)
{
view.ViewFields.Add(field);
}
}
}
view.Update();
}
}
}
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
namespace SerilizationTest
{
static class Pickler
{
public static T UnPickle<T>(Stream s)
{
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
return (T)xs.Deserialize(s);
}
public static void Pickle<T>(Stream s, T o)
{
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
xs.Serialize(s, o);
}
public static string Pickle<T>(T o)
{
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
StringWriter sr = new StringWriter();
xs.Serialize(sr, o);
return sr.ToString();
}
public static T UnPickle<T>(string s)
{
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
StringReader sr = new StringReader(s);
return (T)xs.Deserialize(sr);
}
public T UnPickle<T>(XmlNode node)
{
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
StringReader sr = new StringReader(node.OuterXml);
XmlReader xr = XmlReader.Create(sr);
return (T)xs.Deserialize(xr);
}
}
}
=== addpage.boo ===
import Microsoft.SharePoint
import System.IO
def addPage(_site as string, _web as string, _page as string, _url as string):
site = SPSite(_site)
web = site.OpenWeb(_web)
folder = web.GetFolder(“”)
folder.Files.Add(_url, File.OpenRead(_page), true)
addPage(argv[0], argv[1], argv[2], argv[3])
The BDC in SharePoint (which is only available in the paid-for MOSS edition of SharePoint) allows you to add external business data to a SharePoint list. There are several catches:
Developer Rants 