Lookup Field programmatically in FeatureActivated

Question

I've created a lookup field programmatically in the featureactivated method. This is the code snippet.

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
  using (SPWeb web = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent)
  {
    SPList destinationList = web.Lists.TryGetList("Participating Artists");
    SPList sourceList = web.ParentWeb.Lists.TryGetList("artistlist");
    destinationList.Fields.AddLookup("Artist", sourceList.ID, false);

    SPFieldLookup lkp = (SPFieldLookup)destinationList.Fields["Artist"];
    lkp.LookupField = "Title";
    lkp.Update();
  }
}

The sourcelist is on the parent page of where the feature is activated. Everyting works fine. The only problem I'm having is that no item is getting "looked up" in the destination list when I'm creating a new listitem. The lookupfield remains empty even if the sourcelist has items in it.

This is how the sourcelist looks like:

elements.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <!-- Do not change the value of the Name attribute below. If it does not match the folder name of the List project item, an error will occur when the project is run. -->
    <ListTemplate
        Name="artist"
        Type="10000"
        BaseType="0"
        OnQuickLaunch="TRUE"
        SecurityBits="11"
        Sequence="410"
        DisplayName="artistlist"
        Description="My List Definition"
        Image="/_layouts/15/images/itgen.png"/>
</Elements>

And the

schema.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<List xmlns:ows="Microsoft SharePoint" Title="artistlist" FolderCreation="FALSE" Direction="$Resources:Direction;" Url="Lists/artistlist" BaseType="0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <MetaData>
        <ContentTypes>
            <ContentType ID="0x01002b8b73e5d4d94e75995b6af193be129e" Name="ListFieldsContentType">
                <FieldRefs>
                    <FieldRef ID="{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}" Name="Title" />
                </FieldRefs>
            </ContentType>
            <ContentTypeRef ID="0x01">
                <Folder TargetName="Item" />
            </ContentTypeRef>
            <ContentTypeRef ID="0x0120" />
        </ContentTypes>
        <Fields>
            <Field ID="{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}" Type="Text" Name="Title" DisplayName="Artist" Required="TRUE" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3" StaticName="Title" MaxLength="255" />
        </Fields>
        <Views>
            <View BaseViewID="0" Type="HTML" MobileView="TRUE" TabularView="FALSE">
                <Toolbar Type="Standard" />
                <XslLink Default="TRUE">main.xsl</XslLink>
                <RowLimit Paged="TRUE">30</RowLimit>
                <ViewFields>
                    <FieldRef Name="LinkTitleNoMenu"></FieldRef>
                </ViewFields>
                <Query>
                    <OrderBy>
                        <FieldRef Name="Modified" Ascending="FALSE"></FieldRef>
                    </OrderBy>
                </Query>
                <ParameterBindings>
                    <ParameterBinding Name="AddNewAnnouncement" Location="Resource(wss,addnewitem)" />
                    <ParameterBinding Name="NoAnnouncements" Location="Resource(wss,noXinviewofY_LIST)" />
                    <ParameterBinding Name="NoAnnouncementsHowTo" Location="Resource(wss,noXinviewofY_ONET_HOME)" />
                </ParameterBindings>
            </View>
            <View BaseViewID="1" Type="HTML" WebPartZoneID="Main" DisplayName="$Resources:core,objectiv_schema_mwsidcamlidC24;" DefaultView="TRUE" MobileView="TRUE" MobileDefaultView="TRUE" SetupPath="pages\viewpage.aspx" ImageUrl="/_layouts/15/images/generic.png?rev=23" Url="AllItems.aspx">
                <Toolbar Type="Standard" />
                <XslLink Default="TRUE">main.xsl</XslLink>
                <JSLink>clienttemplates.js</JSLink>
                <RowLimit Paged="TRUE">30</RowLimit>
                <ViewFields>
                    <FieldRef Name="LinkTitle"></FieldRef>
                </ViewFields>
                <Query>
                    <OrderBy>
                        <FieldRef Name="ID"></FieldRef>
                    </OrderBy>
                </Query>
                <ParameterBindings>
                    <ParameterBinding Name="NoAnnouncements" Location="Resource(wss,noXinviewofY_LIST)" />
                    <ParameterBinding Name="NoAnnouncementsHowTo" Location="Resource(wss,noXinviewofY_DEFAULT)" />
                </ParameterBindings>
            </View>
        </Views>
        <Forms>
            <Form Type="DisplayForm" Url="DispForm.aspx" SetupPath="pages\form.aspx" WebPartZoneID="Main" />
            <Form Type="EditForm" Url="EditForm.aspx" SetupPath="pages\form.aspx" WebPartZoneID="Main" />
            <Form Type="NewForm" Url="NewForm.aspx" SetupPath="pages\form.aspx" WebPartZoneID="Main" />
        </Forms>
    </MetaData>
</List>

Derek Gusoff · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-26 14:15:46Z

I would recommend using the declarative approach to provision your lookup, especially since it looks like your parent list is deployed this way. There is a trick to doing this, though, in that your lookup must be declared after the list instance representing your parent list. I handle this by provisioning my lookups directly inline with the list instance, like this:

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <ListInstance Title="Clients" 
            OnQuickLaunch="TRUE" 
            TemplateType="10000" 
            Url="Lists/Clients" 
            Description="My List Instance">

  </ListInstance>

<Field Name="Client" 
     DisplayName="Client" 
     ID="{BA0F3BCC-430B-4388-922B-A29E96364E61}" 
     Type="Lookup" 
     List="Lists/Clients" 
     ShowField="Title" 
     Group="_DMG Site Columns" >
</Field>
</Elements>

...and if I may, and since I've seen several people struggle with this, I wrote a quick blog post with a little more detail on the topic.

Salvatore Di Fazio · Answer 2 · 2013-04-26 10:53:26Z

I think you forget to specify some information on your code behind.

Take a look at this solution: http://salvatoredifaziosharepoint.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/sharepoint-2010-create-content-type.html

BTW in the Field specification I wrote something like this:

<Field ID="{2AAD1044-89E9-4C88-8234-424A4B739C1C}" Name="LookupToList" DisplayName="LookupToList" StaticName="LookupToList" Type ="Lookup" Required="TRUE" Group="Custom Columns" Overwrite="TRUE" WebId="~sitecollection" EnforceUniqueValues="FALSE"   List="Lists/MyList" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3" ShowField="MyLookupField" />

Andrew Adamich · Answer 3 · 2013-04-26 11:16:53Z

I suppose that you do not have your lookup items because when your list is created it does not know yet where to get columns from (source list does not exists).

What we usually do is moving XML declaration to event receiver when feature is activated. In this event receiver you should specify root web and list IDs to get it work. Here is the example:

var site = new SPSite((properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite).ID);

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate
{
    SPList referencedList = site.RootWeb.Lists[Lists.TestimonialsList];
    SPContentType myContentType = site.RootWeb.ContentTypes[ContentTypes.ExpertiseContentType];

    SPField _lookup = site.RootWeb.Fields[new Guid("{2DC1E1AF-F5C5-490A-ABCF-B7F1E8834C2F}")];
    if (_lookup == null)
    {
       site.RootWeb.Fields.AddFieldAsXml(
       @"<Field
       ID='{2DC1E1AF-F5C5-490A-ABCF-B7F1E8834C2F}'
       Name='Name'
       StaticName='Name'
       DisplayName='Display name'
       Type='Lookup'
       List='" + referencedList.ID + @"'
       ShowField='Title'
       UnlimitedLengthInDocumentLibrary='TRUE'
       Group='your group'
       SourceID='http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3'
       Mult='TRUE'
       WebId='" + site.RootWeb.ID.ToString() + @"'
       Overwrite='TRUE'
       Required='FALSE'>
       </Field>");
    }

    SPFieldLink myFIeldLink = new SPFieldLink(site.RootWeb.Fields[Fields.TestimonialReferenceField]);
    myContentType.FieldLinks.Add(myFIeldLink);
    myContentType.Update(true);
});        
site.Dispose();

When do this do not forget that you do not need anymore to have this XML declaration nor in your fields, nor in content type or list schema.

Hope it helps you,

Andrew

asked	20 days ago
viewed	118 times
active	20 days ago

Lookup Field programmatically in FeatureActivated

3 Answers

Your Answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged sharepoint-online lookup-column or ask your own question.

Community Bulletin

Lookup Field programmatically in FeatureActivated

3 Answers

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged sharepoint-online lookup-column or ask your own question.

Community Bulletin

Related