Project Description
Simplifies creation of SharePoint CAML queries for client-side scripts. Intended to be used with SharePoint Client Object Model.
Basics
To start with, let's assume we need to fetch all Google-related letters from some mailbox list, using SharePoint Client Object Model. To generate the corresponding query using Caml Builder, you could use following javascript code:
var camlBuilder = new CamlBuilder();
var caml = camlBuilder.Where()
.TextField("Email").EqualTo("support@google.com")
.Or()
.TextField("Email").EqualTo("plus@google.com")
.Or()
.TextField("Title").BeginsWith("[Google]")
.Or()
.TextField("Content").Contains("Google")
.ToString();
This will generate expected CAML:
<Where>
<Or>
<Eq>
<FieldRef Name="Email" />
<Value Type="Text">support@google.com</Value>
</Eq>
<Or>
<Eq>
<FieldRef Name="Email" />
<Value Type="Text">plus@google.com</Value>
</Eq>
<Or>
<BeginsWith>
<FieldRef Name="Title" />
<Value Type="Text">[Google]</Value>
</BeginsWith>
<Contains>
<FieldRef Name="Content" />
<Value Type="Text">Google</Value>
</Contains>
</Or>
</Or>
</Or>
</Where>
, which then could be used in SP.CamlQuery.
Very good so far, and have a look at some other examples!
First of all, cannot resist to mention, that CamlBuilder covers almost all Query elements, described at MSDN.
For example, seldom used Membership element:
var caml = camlBuilder.Where()
.IntegerField("AssignedTo").EqualTo("{UserID}")
.Or()
.UserField("AssignedTo").Membership.CurrentUserGroups()
.GroupBy("ProductTitle")
.OrderBy("Priority").ThenBy("Title")
.ToString();
This code will generate following CAML:
<Where>
<Or>
<Eq>
<FieldRef Name="AssignedTo" />
<Value Type="Integer">
<UserID />
</Value>
</Eq>
<Membership Type="CurrentUserGroups">
<FieldRef Name="AssignedTo" />
</Membership>
</Or>
</Where>
<GroupBy>
<FieldRef Name="ProductTitle" />
</GroupBy>
<OrderBy>
<FieldRef Name="Priority" />
<FieldRef Name="Title" />
</OrderBy>
The last example at this section:
caml = camlBuilder.Where()
.LookupIdField("Category").In([2, 3, 10])
.And()
.DateField("ExpirationDate").LessThanOrEqualTo("{Now}")
.OrderByDesc("ExpirationDate")
.ToString()
As you see, the code is pretty clean and readable. The resulting CAML is much more awkward, especially if you imagine it in javascript strings dress, without indentation and highlighting...
<Where>
<And>
<In>
<FieldRef Name="Category" LookupId="True" />
<Values>
<Value Type="Integer">2</Value>
<Value Type="Integer">3</Value>
<Value Type="Integer">10</Value>
</Values>
</In>
<Leq>
<FieldRef Name="ExpirationDate" />
<Value Type="Date">
<Now />
</Value>
</Leq>
</And>
</Where><OrderBy>
<FieldRef Name="ExpirationDate" Ascending="False" />
</OrderBy>
Usability
Besides of readability, CamlBuilder pretends to be very handy in development, because you can use intellisense and inline documentation:
This will help to catch a bunch of errors when writing code, and surely prevent from typos and misunderstandings, so the benefits could be really magnificient!
Contribute
Any contributions are highly appreciated!