The other day I learned of a cool function in SharePoint which can come in handy if you want to export a list to XML. And best of all, no code, script or SharePoint Destroyer… *cough* … Designer needed. What you do is simply to call an OOTB SharePoint service and specify in the query string what it is you want, and in which format:
http://<site url>/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Cmd=Display&List=<listid>&View=<view guid>&Query=*&XMLDATA=TRUE
So what you do is to call the owssvr.dll from the site you want to export from, and in the query string add Cmd=Display. Then you add the List and View you want to export from. If you want all items and fields you simply set Query=*. Mind, you still might have to reference a view, even though it won’t be used when using the query. And in the end, add XMLDATA=TRUE. That’s it! An example of how it might look:
http://{site tul}/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Cmd=Display&List={002A6DE2-7638-4FEF-A7CD-7427D4DECABA}&View={757d5548-eafc-4a5f-8ef4-e0be36d790a3}&Query=*&XMLDATA=TRUE
You can get the guid to the list by simply going to the list settings and copy the guid from the url. Its the guid after “…&List=”. That’s it. =) Some documentation about it and other SharePoint services: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd588689(v=office.11).aspx
Exporting list schema
https://{site url}/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Cmd=ExportList&List={2E892A7A-B3D4-4625-8AFF-EFDA9CD88F44}