Connecting to sharepoint server using Ruby or RubyOnRails

Question

I have a SharePoint server. I am building an rails application which can interact with sharepoint server although this is not the primary goal of the application. I am planning to provide this as an advantage.

My target areas would be 1. Fetching available document repository from SharePoint 2. Add documents to sharepoint using Rails front end 3. Get list of all documents with there hierarchy to be displayed on application listing page

I am unaware of any service or protocol to use to achieve the above defined points.

also the second alternative is i can use svn to manage my document repository but i will some how need to migrate all the existing documents from SharePoint server.

any pointer or help could be valuable.

Answer 1

SharePoint provides a set of web services that can be consumed by non-.NET applications, however they are limited compared to what is available when running .NET code. There is also the FrontPage RPC calls that cover the uploading of files.

Fetching available document repository from SharePoint

Use the Lists.GetListCollection() method provided by the Lists.asmx web service. A ServerTemplate of 101 indicates a document library. See these articles under MSDN for walkthroughs.

Add documents to SharePoint using Rails front end

FrontPage RPC is required for this. The best example I've seen is here. There's another one here.

Get list of all documents with their hierarchy to be displayed on application listing page

Use the Lists.GetListItems() method similar to point 1.

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Apologies but you will have to translate the C#/VB code in the links above into something that works under Ruby.

If these don't provide the necessary solutions and/or are too complex, you may wish to write your own solution with IronRuby. SharePoint supports writing custom web services that you could use from your client application instead.