Essential SharePoint 2007, 2nd Edition

Using URL Commands

URL commands get XML results from a SharePoint server through HTTP GET requests. You invoke the commands by specifying them as query strings in an address that has this form:

http://server/subsite/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Cmd=cmdname
&param=value&param=value ...

URL commands don't alter the content database, so they don't require authentication. The RPC protocol provides a similar approach, but uses HTTP POST instead of GET, and so can include authentication information and thus change content. Table 12-6 lists the commands that can be invoked through HTTP GET.

Table 12-6. SharePoint URL commands

Command	Parameters	Use to
dialogview	dialogview, location, FileDialogFilterValue	Open the view used in a dialog box for opening or saving files to a document library; or open the custom property form that is used when saving a file to a document library.
Display	List, XMLDATA	Run a database query against the list and return XML or HTML.
DisplayPost	PostBody, URLBase	Render the Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) assigned to the PostBody parameter.
ExportList	List	Export in CAML format the schema of the list.
GetProjSchema		Request the XML Schema for a web site.
GetUsageBlob	BlobType	Get information about web site usage.
HitCounter	Page, Image, Custom, Digits	Render a hit counter in an img element on a page.
RenderView	List, View, URLBase	Request the contents of a view for the list.

The URL commands also accept the set of optional parameters in Table 12-7 to modify the returned results.

Table 12-7. URL ...