HTML-Rendering Elements

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CAML has two major types of elements — those for field rendering and schema definition, and those for page rendering. The page rendering CAML elements are designed for use in rendering pages, for example, when you need to extract the property of a specific field and render it on a page.

Elements can be used in two different ways. Such elements as the Today element are used to directly generate a text string to be inserted within the page. Other elements are used to modify text generated by their child elements. For example:

<ows:URL>Link here</ows:URL>

The URL element modifies the text in the body by wrapping an <A> tag pointing to the current item around the text rendered by the body.

Elements can also be concatenated to produce a concatenation of their output. For example:

<ows:XML>
  <Today/>
  <UserID/>
</ows:XML>

The previous example renders today's date followed by the current user's ID.

The following table describes some of the prominent CAML HTML-rendering elements.

Name Description
Batch Used for batch processing of commands within HTTP protocol.
Case Used inside a Switch or FieldSwitch statement to perform a comparison.
Default Contains the default value of a field to which new item forms are initialized.
Expr Contains a CAML expression that is evaluated to determine the course of action for a Switch or FieldSwitch statement.
FieldSwitch Allows for conditional rendering based on the value of a CAML expression.
ForEach Provides a basic mechanism for enumerating a collection of views or fields defined in the current list.
GetVar Returns a variable in the context of rendering the page.
HTMLBase Returns a string that sets the base element for the current page.
HttpHost Renders the URL of the virtual server containing the current Web site.
HttpPath Returns the path to the appropriate OWSSVR.DLL.
HttpVDir Returns the root directory of the current site.
IfEqual Allows for conditional rendering based on the comparison of two CAML expressions.
ListProperty Returns the value of a specified column in the Lists table of the database.
Now Renders the current time.
Project The top-level element in ONET.XML.
ProjectProperty Returns a global property of the current team Web site.
Property Returns the property from the current ForEach context.
SetList Designates which list is current.
SetVar Sets variables in the context of rendering the page.
Switch Allows for conditional rendering based on the value of a CAML expression.
Today Renders today's date.
URL Renders a URL.
View Defines a view in Windows SharePoint Services.
XML Used as an outer wrapper to denote a section of CAML.