SharePoint 2010 Object Hierarchy

• SPFarm – Represents farm-level settings.
• Class and global, static object
• Cannot create or dispose
• Will only be used if creating Admin type of tools.
• SPService – Represents farm wide services
• SPWebService is a type of SPService – Each Web application belongs to an SPWebService.
• Forms, Access, PerformancePoint, Search, Excel, User Profile, Business DataConnectivity, Managed Metadata.
• Will only be used if creating Admin type of tools.
• It is a base class that other specific services inherit.
• SPWebApplication – Maps to IIS Web sites
• Can create and delete web applications (usually done in admin).
• SPSite – Represents Site Collections
• Each have a RootWeb
• Contains site level features and solutions
• Instantiate by:
• Using it’s constructor.
• Member of Sites collection of the SPWebApplication.
• Referencing the current site context.
• Usually represents a security boundary.
• SPWeb – Represents SharePoint Sites
• Consider SPWeb objects as storage units.
• Contains pages, lists, libraries, subwebs.
• Instantiate by:
• RootWeb of SPSite object.
• Member of AllWebs collection in SPSite.
• Return value of the OpenWeb method of a SPSite object.
• Referencing the current context web.
• SPList – Primary container for data.
• Contains data and exposes properties.

Both SPSite and SPWeb Objects need to be disposed because they have underlying COM objects thatperform some tasks.