A Full CRUD for SharePoint Online with .NET 8

Ajran Hossain | Jan 5, 2025 min read

A Full CRUD for SharePoint Online with .NET 8

This blog is a short and simple tutorial to help you work with SharePoint Online using .NET 8 and the PnP Framework. While doing some R&D, I decided to document this process in case it helps someone.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

  1. User Credentials: A user account with access to the SharePoint Online site.
  2. Make sure this account must not have MFA enabled. If I discover a workaround for this, I will update the blog.
  3. Development Environment: .NET 8 installed on your machine.

Step 1: Configure an Application in Azure Active Directory (AAD)

Ref: mslearn

To interact with SharePoint Online, you need to create and configure an application in Azure AD. Here’s how:

  1. Go to the Azure AD Portal.
  2. Select Azure Active Directory > App registrations > New registration.
  3. Enter a name for your application and click Register.
  4. Go to API Permissions and add permissions for SharePoint:
    • Choose Delegated Permissions and select permissions like AllSites.Manage.
  5. Grant admin consent to the application’s requested permissions.
  6. Go to Authentication and enable “Allow public client flows” by setting it to Yes.
  7. Copy the Application (client) ID from the Overview page for later use.

Step 2: Create a .NET Console Application

Let’s start by creating a .NET console app:

dotnet new console -n sp-online-crud

Add the required NuGet packages:

dotnet add package Microsoft.SharePointOnline.CSOM --version 16.1.25611.12000
dotnet add package PnP.Framework --version 1.17.0

Step 3: Code

Below is the complete example code for performing CRUD operations on SharePoint lists. Follow along step by step.

using System;
using System.Security;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;
using PnP.Framework;

internal class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        string client_id = "<YOUR_CLIENT_ID>"; // Replace with your Azure App ID
        string site = "<YOUR_SITE_URL>";      // Replace with your SharePoint site URL
        string user = "<YOUR_USER_EMAIL>";   // Replace with your user email
        SecureString password = GetSecureString("<YOUR_PASSWORD>"); // Replace with your password

        using var authenticationManager = new AuthenticationManager(client_id, user, password);
        using var context = authenticationManager.GetContext(site);

        Console.WriteLine("Retrieving all lists...");
        ShowAllLists(context);

        string listTitle = "<YOUR_LIST_TITLE>"; // Replace with your list title

        Console.WriteLine($"\nReading items from '{listTitle}'...");
        ReadListItems(context, listTitle);

        Console.WriteLine($"\nCreating an item in '{listTitle}'...");
        CreateListItem(context, listTitle, "Ajran");

        Console.WriteLine($"\nUpdating an item in '{listTitle}'...");
        UpdateListItem(context, listTitle, 1, "Ajran Hossain");

        Console.WriteLine($"\nDeleting an item from '{listTitle}'...");
        DeleteListItem(context, listTitle, 1);

        Console.WriteLine("\nOperations completed.");
    }

    private static SecureString GetSecureString(string password)
    {
        var secureString = new SecureString();
        foreach (char c in password)
        {
            secureString.AppendChar(c);
        }
        return secureString;
    }

    private static void ShowAllLists(ClientContext context)
    {
        var lists = context.Web.Lists;
        context.Load(lists, l => l.Include(list => list.Title, list => list.Id));
        context.ExecuteQuery();

        foreach (var list in lists)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"List Title: {list.Title}, List ID: {list.Id}");
        }
    }

    private static void CreateListItem(ClientContext context, string listTitle, string title)
    {
        try
        {
            var list = context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle(listTitle);
            var itemCreateInfo = new ListItemCreationInformation();
            var newItem = list.AddItem(itemCreateInfo);
            newItem["Title"] = title;
            newItem.Update();
            context.ExecuteQuery();
            Console.WriteLine($"Item '{title}' created successfully.");
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Error creating item in list '{listTitle}': {ex.Message}");
        }
    }

    private static void ReadListItems(ClientContext context, string listTitle)
    {
        try
        {
            var list = context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle(listTitle);
            var items = list.GetItems(CamlQuery.CreateAllItemsQuery());
            context.Load(items);
            context.ExecuteQuery();

            Console.WriteLine($"Items in '{listTitle}':");
            foreach (var item in items)
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"Item ID: {item.Id}, Title: {item["Title"]}");
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Error reading items from list '{listTitle}': {ex.Message}");
        }
    }
     private static void UpdateListItem(ClientContext context, string listTitle, int itemId, string newTitle)
    {
        try
        {
            var list = context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle(listTitle);
            var item = list.GetItemById(itemId);
            item["Title"] = newTitle;
            item.Update();
            context.ExecuteQuery();
            Console.WriteLine($"Item with ID {itemId} updated successfully to '{newTitle}'.");
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Error updating item in list '{listTitle}': {ex.Message}");
        }
    }

    private static void DeleteListItem(ClientContext context, string listTitle, int itemId)
    {
        try
        {
            var list = context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle(listTitle);
            var item = list.GetItemById(itemId);
            item.DeleteObject();
            context.ExecuteQuery();
            Console.WriteLine($"Item with ID {itemId} deleted successfully.");
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Error deleting item from list '{listTitle}': {ex.Message}");
        }
    }
}

now you can run the application using the following command:

dotnet run

Output:

Output

List Operations:

  • Retrieve All Lists: Fetches and displays all lists in the site.
  • Read Items: Retrieves and displays items from a specific list.
  • Create Items: Adds a new item to a specified list.
  • Update Items: Updates an existing item in a list.
  • Delete Items: Deletes an item from a list.

Happy coding! 🚀