SharePoint List Names Localization

You can’t call a list by its internal name by default in SharePoint or I don’t know how, you have to use the display name or the GUID and that’s an issue when it comes to localization.

In order to solve this issue I have created a couple of wrappers based on the URL. The idea is simple, I use a set of constants to store the “internal names” of the lists and always retrieve them using this constants. So far it has worked fine.

/// <summary>
/// Returns null if the list is not found
/// </summary>
public static SPList GetListByInternalName(this SPListCollection Lists, string InternalName)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(InternalName)) return null;

    Guid ListGuid = Lists.GetListIdByInternalName(InternalName);

    if (ListGuid != Guid.Empty)
        return Lists[ListGuid];

    return null;
}

/// <summary>
/// Returns the UIDC of the list
/// </summary>
static Guid GetListIdByInternalName(this SPListCollection Lists, string InternalName)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(InternalName)) return Guid.Empty;

    foreach (SPList list in Lists)
        if (list.GetInternalName().ToLower() == InternalName.ToLower())
            return list.ID;

    return Guid.Empty;
}

/// <summary>
/// Gets the Url of the list. That's what we consider its internal name
/// </summary>
public static string GetInternalName(this SPList list)
{
    string Url = list.RootFolder.ServerRelativeUrl;

    string[] split = Url.Split('/');

    return split[split.Length - 1];
}

After this the display name of the list is not relevant any more and localization is simple or, at least, a bit simpler.