When I first installed SharePoint, I was amazed with the many ways I could access data (your mileage may vary depending on licensing options): user interface, web services, SharePoint Services API, RSS, email alerts, workflows, Business Data Catalog, Excel Services, Stssync protocol (Outlook Integration), Stsadm command line, T-SQL (unsupported), and RPC/URL protocols (owssvr.dll). Well, add to that list (and your Power User Toolbox) the SharePoint and Office Live JavaScript API.

Darren Johnstone created a JavaScript library that talks to SharePoint using the native web services. Here’s an example that pulls the current user’s name and displays it:

 

<script type="text/javascript" src="/PaulGrenier/js/SPAPI/SPAPI_Core.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/PaulGrenier/js/SPAPI/SPAPI_Lists.js"></script>
<div id="username_div"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push('showUserName');
function showUserName(){
  var userName = getCurrentUserName();
  if (userName != null){
    document.getElementById('username_div').innerHTML = 'Welcome: ' + userName;
  }else{
  document.getElementById('username_div').innerHTML = 'User name not found';
  }
}
function getCurrentUserName(){
  var lists = new SPAPI_Lists('https://endusersharepoint.securespsites.com/PaulGrenier');
  var items = lists.getListItems(
  '2D3F492B-C6E9-4608-82FA-DCAE42B0C57F', //other lists can be called by name
  '',
  '<Query><Where><Eq><FieldRef Name="ID"/><Value Type="Counter">' +
   _spUserId + '</Value></Eq></Where></Query>', // query
  '',
  1, // rowLimit
  '' // queryOptions
  );
  if (items.status == 200){
    var rows = items.responseXML.getElementsByTagName('z:row');
    if (rows.length == 1){
      return rows[0].getAttribute('ows_Title'); //field name of data to return
    }else{
    return null;
    }
  }else{
  return null;
  }
}
</script>

Just like with jQuery, we have to reference some scripts that we uploaded to the server. After that, the code has a little div tag to display the returned information–but that’s the last step, no reading ahead! You’ll miss the cool parts.

The first line of JavaScript uses a built-in SharePoint function you probably noticed in Solution 1 of part 4, _spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push. That just tells SharePoint that we want to run this script when the page loads. That calls the first function we wrote, showUserName.

showUserName calls the last function, getCurrentUserName, and stores the returned value in a variable called userName. Within the last function, we have to call Darren’s library functions: SPAPI_Lists and getListItems to establish the list we’re talking to and to grab the returned XML.

With Darren’s libraries, we can normally use the list name (very cool) instead of the Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) as a parameter in the SPAPI_Lists function but I was not able to make that work in this situation. I have an easy way to find the GUID for the User Information List that I’ll show you later.

In the middle of getListItems, we use another built-in SharePoint function, _spUserId, to filter the returned rows by the current user’s ID. To understand the next few steps, it helps to see what the XML the web service returns. To see that, we can use the URL protocol.

This trick works on any site and with most permission levels. Click the People and Groups link and then click All People. Now view the page’s source and search for owssvr.dll. Since the User Information List isn’t a normal SharePoint list, the page uses the URL protocol to retrieve the data.

Notice the value of the List parameter, that’s the User Information List’s GUID. Copy that entire URL after o:webquerysourcehref and paste it into your browser’s address bar. If you don’t see many records, remove the &View=… portion of the URL and try again. This displays an XML file with helpful information. Here’s a sample returned row:

See the z:row element? The script above uses getElementsByTagName(’z:row’) to get that data. In the next step, we extract the attribute ows_Title but we could easily change that to pull ows_EMail or ows_Name instead.

In the last step, after getting a value for the userName variable, we simply find the empty div we made and insert the value as innerHTML.