sharepoint list Vs library-developer point of view

Question

What is the exact differnace between sharepoint list and library in developer point of view?

Solution 1

According this blog, http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22731, use Library for storing documents, and use Lists for data, for example, a database record. Here's a direct quote

"I dug a little deeper and did find some points about list attachments that suggest a list is probably not the best way to house documents if the organization wants to take advantage of the full range of SP features:

1) The title of the document is NOT indexed. So an end user would not be able to search on the title of the document. Example: I attached a document titled "Copy of Test Lobster.doc" but after incremental indexing I get no results searching on the word "lobster." (medium issue)

2) I can attach multiple documents to one list item, which could cause problems (minor issue)

3) You can't (to the best of my knowledge) display the name of the attached document. You only see the paperclip that signifies the attachment. (major issue)

4) You don't have document control, no check-in or check-out. (major issue)"

Solution 2

From a programmer's point of view, a Library is referenced through an SPDocumentLibrary object. SPDocumentLibrary inherits from the SPList class.

A Library is a List, but all lists are not libraries.

A Library is a specific implementation of a List intended for holding documents and metadata about the documents in the columns of the Library.

Solution 3

I would say except the content type their is no difference between list and library the base content type for both differs for other programming differences kindly go through the following url

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd490727(v=office.12).aspx

Solution 4

A document library is a specialized form of a list that has additional features to manage documents. This is also evident in the SDK where you can see that SPDocumentLibrary extends SPList.

Another way to think of the difference is that a document library contains documents while a list contains "contentless" documents (aka only metadata) - although this is slightly violated by means of attachments.

Solution 5

Libraries can hold files so a few additional methods/properties such as Item.File are valid for accessing the files. Anything involving the metadata columns will be much the same.

View more solutions

Comments

[Tom Clarkson]

Yes, but that is a different property - it is treated quite differently from the document library file.

[Tom Resing]

That quote is from a 5 year old article and may not be accurate anymore.