SharePoint Interview Questions for Developers

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SharePoint Interview Questions for Developers

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Interview Questions for Developers - A four-part series.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 {new}

Q. What Do you know about SharePoint Object Model?

Ans. In Sharepoint Object model there are two Important namespaces.

The Microsoft.Office.Server namespace is the root namespace of all Office Server objects and Microsoft.SharePoint is the root namespace for all WSS objects.
Read More at SharePoint 2007 Object Model

Q. Can you develop webparts and other SharePoint solutions at your local machine?

Ans. In order to run and debug sharePoint solutions, the project must reside on the server which has Windows sharePoint services installed. However, you can reference the Microsoft.SharePoint dll in your project at your local, but you won’t be able to run it.

Q. How do you debug SharePoint Webparts?

Ans. To debug SharePoint webpart (or any solution) you can simply drag and drop your complied .dll in GAC and recycle the app pool. You can also run upgrade solution command from stsadm.

Q. How would you retrieve large number of Items form the list ?

Ans. To retrieve large number of items with a better performance we can either use SPQuery or PortalSiteMapProvider Class. Read More with Examples
Retrieving large number of Items from sharepoint list

Q. How Do you implement Impersonation in ShrePoint.

Ans. By Using RunWithElevatedPrivileges method provided by SPSecurity class.
See e.g Impersonation in Sharepoint

Q: What is the performance impact of RunWithElevatedPrivileges?

Ans. RunWithElevatedPrivileges creates a new thread with the App Pool's credentials, blocking your current thread until it finishes.

Q. How will you add Code behind to a Custom Applictaion Page or a Layout Page in SharePoint?

Ans. You do not deploy a code behind file with your custom Layouts page. Instead, you can have the page inherit from the complied dll of the solution to access the code behind.

Q. What is the difference between a Site Definition and a Site Template?

Ans. Site Definitions are stored on the hard drive of the SharePoint front end servers. They are used by the SharePoint application to generate the sites users can create. Site Templates are created by users as a copy of a site they have configured and modified so that they do not have to recreate lists, libraries, views and columns every time they need a new instance of a site.

Q. Why do you use Feature Receivers ?

Ans. Feature Receivers are used to execute any code on Activation\Deactivation of a Feature. You can use it for various purposes.

Q. Can you give a example where feature receivers are used.

Ans. You can use it to assign an event receiver feature to a specific type of list or can write a code in a feature receivers Deactivate method to remove a webpart from webpart gallery.

Q. Where do you deploy the additional files used in your webpart, like css or javascript files, and how do you use them in your WebPart?

Ans. You can deploy the css or javascript files in _layouts folder in SharePoint's 12 hive. To use them in your webpart, you need to first register them to your webpart page and then specify a virtual path for the file for e.g. _layouts\MyCSS.css See Code examples at Using External Javascript, CSS or Image File in a WebPart.

Q: When should you dispose SPWeb and SPSite objects?

Ans. According to the best Practices you should always dispose them if you have created them in your code. You can dispose them in Finally block or you can use the "Using" clause, so that they gets disposed when not required. If you are using SPContext then you need not dispose the spsite or spweb objects.

Q. What are the best practices for SharePoint development.

Ans. Some of the best practices are:

1. You should always dispose SPsite and SPWeb objects, once you refer them in your code. Using the "Using" clause is recommended.

2. Use RunwithelevatePrivilages to avoid errors for end users.

3. Try writing your errors to SharePoint error logs (ULS Logs). Since it’s a bad idea to fill-up event log for your production environment.

4. Use SPQuery instead of foreach loop while retrieving Items from the list.

5. Deploy additional files used in your webpart to 12 hive. Use your solution package to drop the files in 12 hive. Also, make sure that all the references (for e.g. Css or .js files) get removed when the solution is retracted.
Also See : Best Practices to Improve Site Performance

Q.What is the main difference between using SPListItem.Update() and SPListItem.SystemUpdate()?

Ans. Using SystemUpdate() will not create a new version and will also retain timestamps.

See : Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

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