Help Return Lists With With No List Items

Question

This is my first time posting and I'm looking for some help, so hopefully someone has an answer. I used the search, but didn't find anything.

I created a custom list definition, and content type which is attached to it. So I create lists based off of this template, which has the content type attached so I can use all of my user defined columns. Now I am using SPSiteDataQuery to help me return all of the lists in my collection, and I am filtering on the baseType and the contentTypeID to return only lists which where created from my new list template.

Now here is the issue, currently all I want to return in the viewfields is the ListProperty title, but the issue I am having is that SPSiteDataQuery only will return the ListProperty title if there is at least one record in the list. Which is what I am trying to avoid.

The idea is to use the list property to help me populate a few of the columns before data is actually inserted by the user. So I need to be able to find the lists before any data is inserted. I am assuming it is the CAML query I am using to find the lists.

My thought is that I am trying to find the FieldRef of contentTypeID which isn't being populated until there is at least 1 record in the list. Any suggestions on how to solve this would be great.

And thank you in advance.

Here is some of the code.

            using (SPSite site = new SPSite(sharepointURL))
            {
                using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
                {
                    SPSiteDataQuery query = new SPSiteDataQuery();
                    query.Webs = "<Webs Scope='SiteCollection'>";
                    query.Lists = "<Lists BaseType='0' />";
                    query.ViewFields = "<ListProperty Name='Title' Nullable='True'/>" +
                                      "<ProjectProperty Name='Title' Nullable='True'/>";

                    SPContentType ct = web.ContentTypes["FnPContentType"];
                    string filter = string.Format(
                                                    @"<Where>
                                                        <BeginsWith>
                                                            <FieldRef Name='ContentTypeId'/>
                                                            <Value Type='Text'>{0}</Value>
                                                        </BeginsWith>
                                                    </Where>", ct.Id);
                    query.Query = filter;
                    DataTable results = web.GetSiteData(query);
                    foreach (DataRow row in results.Rows)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine(row["ListProperty.Title"].ToString());
                     }

Answer 1

All fields you are trying to access should be mantioned in view fields of the query. This should be done like this:

 query.ViewFields = "<FieldRef Name=\Title\" />" + "" +
"<FieldRef Name=\"FileRef\" />" + "" +
"<FieldRef Name=\"_ModerationStatus\" />" + "" +
"<FieldRef Name=\"UniqueId\" />";

etc...

Once all fields are specified and you retrieve a datatable the columns in the data table have the same name as it mantioned in the view fields of query object:

dt.Rows["ContentTypeId"]
dt.Rows["UniqueId"]
dt.Rows["Title"]

etc.

If you have some more question will be happy to help,

Andrew