How to access SharePoint files and folders from outside SharePoint?

Question

I need to programatically interface with SharePoint folders, files and lists from outside SharePoint. Most tutorials focus on working within SharePoint itself, or at least on the same server where SharePoint is installed. I need to automate some tasks from completely different servers -- tasks that require reading SharePoint lists, browsing folders, checking files out and in, reading files stored in SharePoint libraries, etc. It used to be easy using UNC folder and file paths. Now many of our SharePoint sites don't allow UNC access (probably for good reasons), but my needs are the same. What languages / libraries / interfaces will allow this? I'd like to be able to do this from server-side .NET code and from PowerShell scripts (not on the SharePoint server). Thanks for any pointers.

Answer 1

SharePoint offers a web services API. I won't claim it's particularly friendly or fun, but it does work. You can get started learning here.

Answer 2

Use Sharepoint Web Services which provides a suite of standard web service endpoints you can use to do most anything you can through the objet model API.