Is it possible to read a sharepoint website using C#

Question

I am new to sharepoint technology. I want to know if it is possible to read a website hosted in sharepoint. I can see that page after I log in. Can I do that in C#? And do I have API to do the log in process to get the login info?

I tried this code to access my sharepoint site via my C# code:

    ClientContext context = new ClientContext("https://mycompany.sharepoint.com/sites/parts/");
    var credentials = new NetworkCredential(mywindowsusername, mywindowspassword);


    context.Credentials = credentials;
    // The SharePoint web at the URL.
    Web web = context.Web;

    // We want to retrieve the web's properties.
    context.Load(web);

    // Execute the query to the server.
    context.ExecuteQuery();

    // Now, the web's properties are available and we could display 
    // web properties, such as title. 
    System.Console.WriteLine("Web Title");
    System.Console.WriteLine(web.Title);

But I keep getting 403 error.

Answer 1

You wrote that your web site is on SharePoint. In the sample code you provided the url "https://mycompany.sharepoint.com/sites/parts/".

I assume your SharePoint site is hosted on Office 365. In order to log into Office 365 and SharePoint Online you need to login with special credential object and method.

The client object model have a specific class to log into Office 365 and this class will generate ICredentials. Those ICredentials than can be passed to the context to log in. This class is called SharePointOnlineCredentials. All you have to do is to pass login name and password.

The ICredentials then can be passed to the context. Your code the will looks like this:

ClientContext context = new ClientContext("https://mycompany.sharepoint.com/sites/parts/");
var credentials = new SharePointOnlineCredentials(yourloginusername, yourloginpassword);


context.Credentials = credentials;
// The SharePoint web at the URL.
Web web = context.Web;

Then you should be able to do whatever you want.

Answer 2

actually nothing wrong with the code, but it could be the authorization or authentication issues, as described in some forums.

Try:

context.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials;

or try adding domain in the parameter:

var credentials = new NetworkCredential("theusernameonly", "thepassword", "thedomain");

Hope it helps...

Reference:

Stack Overflow: The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden error

MSDN Forum: SharePoint .net CSOM getting "The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden"

Answer 3

Yes there is Microsoft.SharePoint API used, using below c# code you can connect to SharePoint root site:

SPContext.Current.Site.URL

For subsites you can use the below code:

SPContext.Current.Web.URL

For ClientContext use the below code:

ClientContext context = new ClientContext("https://mycompany.sharepoint.com/sites/parts/");
        WindowsImpersonationContext ctx = null;
        if (!WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().IsSystem)
        {
            ctx = WindowsIdentity.Impersonate(System.IntPtr.Zero);
            // The SharePoint web at the URL.
            Web web = context.Web;

            // We want to retrieve the web's properties.
            context.Load(web);

            // Execute the query to the server.
            context.ExecuteQuery();

            // Now, the web's properties are available and we could display 
            // web properties, such as title. 
            System.Console.WriteLine("Web Title");
            System.Console.WriteLine(web.Title);
        }

Answer 4

I'm not sure what exactly you are looking for in C#, a site or web in sharepoint can be accesses via these codes given below:

SPSite site = new SPSite("Site url");
SPWeb web = site.OpenAllWebs();
string userName = web.CurrentUser.LoginName;