Connecting to SharePoint Online Web Services

Last week we released Remote Authentication in SharePoint Online Using Claims Based Authentication, which, along with its associated code sample, not only demonstrates how to authenticate against SharePoint Online in client applications using the SharePoint client-side object models, but also provides developers with a set of classes that they can use to perform federated user authentication for SharePoint Online.

One related question that, while out of scope for the article and code sample, is likely to be of interest to developers is: how do I authenticate and connect to SharePoint Online Web services, such as list.asmx or web.asmx?

Manish Joshi, one of our talented support engineers here in Office, was kind enough to augment the code presented in the Remote Authentication article to demonstrate one approach to using Web services in SharePoint Online. In the example below, he edits the console application from the code sample so that it accesses the lists.asmx service and prints out a list of items from the Shared Documents library of the target site. If you’re a developer looking to access the Web services available in SharePoint Online, this should get you started.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;
using System.Net;
using MSDN.Samples.ClaimsAuth;

namespace Sp_Ctx
{
    class Program
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //if (args.Length < 1) { Console.WriteLine("SP_Ctx <url>"); return; }
            //string targetSite = args[0];
            string targetSite = "https://sharepointOnlineURLRoot/sites/siteName";
            using (ClientContext ctx = ClaimClientContext.GetAuthenticatedContext(targetSite))
            {
                if (ctx != null)
                {
                    ctx.Load(ctx.Web); // Query for Web
                    ctx.ExecuteQuery(); // Execute
                    Console.WriteLine(ctx.Web.Title);
                }  
            }
            Console.WriteLine("");
            Console.WriteLine("");
            CookieCollection authCookie = 
                ClaimClientContext.GetAuthenticatedCookies(targetSite, 925, 525);
            listWS.Lists list = new listWS.Lists();
            list.Url = "https://sharepointOnlineURLRoot/sites/siteName/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx"
            //list.Timeout = 15000; //in milliseconds
            list.CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
            list.CookieContainer.Add(authCookie);
            string listName = "Shared Documents";
            string viewName = "";
            //string listName = "{1A4A3C5D-360E-45EB-B9ED-E8653981CAC0}";
            //string viewName = "{5A4AF2C5-8A9F-427F-B8AA-BC59E3BE8AA0}";
            string rowLimit = "5";
            // Instantiate an XmlDocument object         
            System.Xml.XmlDocument xmlDoc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
            System.Xml.XmlElement query = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Query");
            System.Xml.XmlElement viewFields = xmlDoc.CreateElement("ViewFields");
            System.Xml.XmlElement queryOptions = xmlDoc.CreateElement("QueryOptions");
            
            //*Use CAML query*/        
            query.InnerXml = "<Where><Gt><FieldRef Name=\"ID\" />" + 
                "<Value Type=\"Counter\">0</Value></Gt></Where>";
            viewFields.InnerXml = "<FieldRef Name=\"Title\" />";
            //queryOptions.InnerXml = "";
            queryOptions.InnerXml = 
                "<IncludeMandatoryColumns>FALSE</IncludeMandatoryColumns>" + 
                "<DateInUtc>TRUE</DateInUtc>";
            System.Xml.XmlNode nodes = 
                list.GetListItems(
                    listName, 
                    viewName, 
                    query, 
                    viewFields, 
                    rowLimit, 
                    null, 
                    string.Empty);
            string ixml = list.GetList(listName).InnerXml;
            Console.WriteLine(
                "Retrieving title of all the items in SharePoint Online" +
                 "sites 'Shared Documents' using Lists webservice");
            Console.WriteLine(
                "===========================================" +
                "=============================================");
            foreach (System.Xml.XmlNode node in nodes)
            {
                if (node.Name == "rs:data")
                {
                    for (int i = 0; i < node.ChildNodes.Count; i++)
                    {
                        if (node.ChildNodes[i].Name == "z:row")
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine(
                                node.ChildNodes[i].Attributes["ows_Title"].Value);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}