Get List by “InternalName”

Question

I'm trying to use the SharePoint 2013 JavaScript Object Model to retrieve a List via an internal name equivalent.

SPList doesn't have a Name or Internal Name property. It is referred to by the Title; however in my case the Title has been altered.

For example the current Title is 'My Images' however, the list URL is '/Lists/MyImages'

I've been browsing the SPList properties using SharePoint Manager 2013 and I've found a couple of properties that might help:

• EntityTypeName (MSDN)
• RootFolder (MSDN)

Both of these properties are giving me the internal name ('MyImages') but I don't know anything about these properties and which property I should use (if either of them)

Can someone give me some info on these properties and what they are based on? The MSDN pages don't give me enough information to work with

Answer 1

If you don't want to use the GUID, you'll have to make an extra call and get the vti_listname property from the list folder. The folder you can get by url using the getFolderByServerRelativeUrl on the SP.Web object.

Example:

var clientContext = SP.ClientContext.get_current();

var web = clientContext.get_web();
var folder =  web.getFolderByServerRelativeUrl(String.format('{0}/lists/MyImages',_spPageContextInfo.webServerRelativeUrl));

clientContext.load(folder, "Properties");

clientContext.executeQueryAsync(function () {

    var list = web.get_lists().getById(folder.get_properties().get_item("vti_listname"));
    clientContext.load(list);
    clientContext.executeQueryAsync(function () {

        console.log(list.get_title());

    },function(sender, args) {
        console.log("Fail: " + args.get_message());
    });

}, function(sender, args) {
    console.log("Fail: " + args.get_message());
});

Answer 2

Like to note that RootFolder as you point out yourself is not a bad idea if you were to use REST (and not jsom), like this:

/_api/Web/Lists?$filter=RootFolder/Name eq 'MyImages'

Then just pick the first one, and you get one result with all additional list data. (Syntax tested on 365, might need $expand on-premise.)

Answer 3

How to get List by its Url:

function getListByName(name,success,error)
{
   var ctx = SP.ClientContext.get_current();
   var lists = ctx.get_web().get_lists();
   var result = ctx.loadQuery(lists, 'Include(RootFolder)');

   ctx.executeQueryAsync(
     function () {
       var list;  
       for(var i = 0; i < result.length; i++) {
           if(result[i].get_rootFolder().get_name() == name) {
               list = result[i];
               break;
           } 
       }
       success(list);
      }, 
      error);
}

Key points:

• requires only a single request to the server
• compatible with SharePoint 2010/2013 JSOM

Usage

getListByName('Pages',
    function(list) {
        if(list) 
            console.log('List has been found');
    },
    function(sender, args) {
        console.log(args.get_message());
    });

Answer 4

You can use Getlist method of the Web object MSDN Link.