Reverse Engineer the Schema of any List in SharePoint

If you have ever designed a custom list then you may already felt the pain of creating the schema of it and writing the whole CAML. Sometimes, we just need to enhance an already existing list by creating our own custom list for which we want to copy the existing schema and do the necessary changes.

You can retrieve the schema of any list by using the owssvr.dll call from your browser. Following is the syntax

http://<YourServer>/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Cmd=ExportList&amp;List=<YourListGuid>”

By replacing the Server and List GUID in above url will return you the XML Schema of the list.

To make thing easier, I have created a Feature to add a custom action in Settings menu called “Display Schema“, Click it and you will get the schema of the list.

Steps to create the feature:

1. Create a new folder called “DisplaySchema” in Features folder.

2. Create Feature.xml file and paste the following code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Feature Id="{A66E6CBA-8EA1-4c28-B233-52B3D7FF352B}"
    Title="Display List Schema"
    Description="This feature adds a custom menu item in Settings menu to display List Schema"
    Version="1.0.0.0"
    Scope="Site"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <ElementManifests>
    <ElementManifest Location="Elements.xml" />
  </ElementManifests>
</Feature>

3. Create Elements.xml file and paste the following code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
<!-- List Toolbar Settings Menu Dropdown -->
  <CustomAction Id="DisplayListSchema"
    RegistrationType="List"
    GroupId="SettingsMenu"
    Location="Microsoft.SharePoint.StandardMenu"
    Sequence="1000"
    Title="Display Schema"
	Description="Displays schema of the list">
    <UrlAction Url="~site/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Cmd=ExportList&amp;List={ListId}"/>
  </CustomAction>
</Elements>

4. Install the feature by using stsadm command line tool.
5. Activate it.
6. Navigate to any list, Document Library, Tasks list etc. and click Settings, and then click Display Schema.
You will get the schema of that list. Copy it and enjoy!