How to check if a subweb exists within a web

Question

How can i check if a subweb exists among SPWeb.Webs ? If i try web.Webs["SubWeb"] it will rise an exception.

Is the following solution clean ?

   SPWeb webfound= null;
   foreach (SPWeb subweb in web.Webs)
   if (subweb.Title == "SubWebTitle")
   {
       webfound= subweb;
       break;
   }
   if (webfound == null) return;
   // do stuff
   webfound.Dispose();

Answer 1

This has some issues:

• Performance: If you have many webs, many objects will be created.
• Disposing: I'm not sure if these SPWeb objects needs to be disposed or if SharePoint keeps track of them and dispose the subwebs when the original SPWeb is closed.
• Title: It is quite possible for multiple sub webs to have the same Title and for a user to change the Title, so Title is not a reliable identifier. Preferably use ID or URL
• Permissions: In what context is the code running? Depending on context, your code may misbehave if the subweb exists, but the current user does not have access to see it.
• Subsubwebs: If you need to find grandchildren, use SPSite.AllWebs

All things considered, I suggest simply using try/catch and trying to open the subweb, but using a different identifier (ID or URL instead of Title) than the original, and if neccessary changing SPSecurity.CatchAccessDeniedException to be able to catch also that case needs to be handled.

Answer 2

If you are using this code then you don't need to Worry about Object disposals and Permission related Issues.

1. "Using" block will take care of objects disposal
2. "SPSecurity.RunWithElevetedPrivileges(del)" will grant site collection admin permission to run this chunk of code

SPWeb myWeb = null; bool ifWebExists = false;

string webUrl = "http://yourSiteCollectionURL";
SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
{
    using (SPWeb oWebsite = new SPSite(webUrl).OpenWeb())
    {
        SPWebCollection subSites = oWebsite.Webs;
        foreach (SPWeb subSite in subSites)
        {
            if(subSite.Title == "SubWebTitle")
            {
                ifWebExists = true;
                myWeb = subSite;
            }
        }   
    }
});

// do stuffs based on web existence