Get meta data from a previous version of a document through webservice in MOSS 2007

Question

Is it possible to get metadata information from a previous version of a document in a document library using a SharePoint webservice?

I know I can use the _vti_bin/Versions.asmx webservice to get information about a previous version, but can I get the previous versions metadata?

If it's not possible through webservice is it possible using Client Object Model?

Answer 1

Versions web service is no use in your case. You need to use Lists web service (http:///_vti_bin/lists.asmx) and Lists.GetVersionCollection Method

Returns version information for the specified field in a SharePoint list.

So you need to query field by field and as far as I know there is no method to return all field versions at once.

Your code could look something like this:

WSLists.Lists listService = new WSLists.Lists();
listService.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
XmlNode result = listService.GetVersionCollection(
    "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx", "[ITEM ID]", "[FIELD NAME]");
string outerXml = result.OuterXml;

and outerXML looks something like this:

<Versions xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/">
  <Version [FIELDNAME]="[VALUE]" Modified="[TIMESTAMP]" Editor="[USER]" />
  .
  .
  .
</Versions>

I never used this approach but I did some tests (on SP 2010 - but I don't think there is difference). I never found good way to easily get all fields for all versions.

And Client Object Model is SP 2010 feature only but except of FileVersion Class I don't see anything similar to 'Get me item versions with metadata'.