How To Get All SharePoint List Item Versions Using CSOM For Custom List And Document Library

In CSOM, there is no direct property to get the item versions from a list Item. Let's learn how to get the versions of all list items using CSOM.

In CSOM, basically, there is no direct property to get the versions of the items in a List. By using "Lists Web Service"(/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx), however, we can get the information of all the versions and properties of each item inside a Custom List or a Document Library.

 

To get the above-required functionality, first of all, we have added the "Lists Web Service" in the required project.

 

In this blog, I am going to share all the codes for getting the version details of list items by using "Lists Web Service". We all know how to add a service to a project.

 

We are using the below code to achieve the same. The code is self-explanatory because of the comments I have written before each snippet.

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Xml;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;
namespace ConsoleApp1 {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            ClientContext context = null;
            List list = null;
            ListItemCollection itemCollection = null;
            ListItem item = null;
            string userName = string.Empty;
            string password = string.Empty;
            string dateHistory = string.Empty;
            string commentHistory = string.Empty;
            string editor = string.Empty;
            string loginName = string.Empty;
            try {
                using(context = new ClientContext("http://SourceWebUrl")) {
                    userName = "UserName";
                    password = "PassWord";
                    // Setting credential for the above site
                    context.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(userName, password);
                    context.Load(context.Web);
                    context.ExecuteQuery();
                    // Getting list by Title
                    list = context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle("Custom List");
                    context.Load(list, L => L.Id);
                    // Getting all items from selected list using caml query
                    itemCollection = list.GetItems(CamlQuery.CreateAllItemsQuery());
                    //Loading selected list items
                    context.Load(itemCollection, IC => IC.Include(I => I.Id, I => I.DisplayName));
                    context.ExecuteQuery();
                    if (itemCollection != null && itemCollection.Count > 0) {
                        for (int iCount = 0; iCount < itemCollection.Count; iCount++) {
                            try {
                                item = itemCollection[iCount];
                                ListService.Lists listService = new ListService.Lists();
                                listService.Url = context.Url + "/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx";
                                listService.Credentials = context.Credentials;
                                //Getting all item versions from custon list item using List Web Service
                                XmlNode nodeVersions = listService.GetVersionCollection(list.Id.ToString(), item.Id.ToString(), "_UIVersionString");
                                //looping all versions and getting 'Modified' and 'Editor' property of each version
                                foreach(XmlNode xNode in nodeVersions) {
                                    try {
                                        dateHistory = xNode.Attributes["Modified"].Value;
                                        dateHistory = FormatDateFromSP(dateHistory);
                                        commentHistory = xNode.Attributes["_UIVersionString"].Value;
                                        loginName = xNode.Attributes["Editor"].Value;
                                    } catch {}
                                }
                            } catch (Exception ex) {}
                        }
                    }
                }
            } catch (Exception ex) {}
        }
        private static string FormatDateFromSP(string dateHistory) {
            string result;
            result = dateHistory.Replace("T", " ");
            result = result.Replace("Z", "");
            return result;
        }
    }
}

I am using a simple console application to iterate all the item version information.