Deleting files from SharePoint (PL/SQL)

Developing with SharePoint web services is just painful sometimes. In order to delete a file, you must write a CAML (Collaborative Application Markup Language) batch with a delete command in it. The odd thing is you must include the absolute location and the ID of the file. Its odd because the ID just has to be any valid ID of a file, not actually the file you want to delete. Can you imagine the BS code logic behind this? This requires the developer to call the the web service once more to lookup the ID (unless you use a statically typed ID of a known persistent file). The call you must make to lookup this ID also retrieves the file contents, ugg, too much extra work when you obviously don't need it, MS.

In order to retrieve the file ID, I use the 'GetItem' call to the 'Copy' web service. If all goes well you well be returned a large set of attribute "Fields" and the file contents in base64, all we need is the "ID" so use something like the following, replace 'response' with the xml(in clob format) you are returned from the web service. ID can also be found on SharePoint if you enable the ID column for the view.

ID := XMLTYPE('response')
     .EXTRACT('//Fields/FieldInformation[@DisplayName="ID"]/@Value'
     ,'xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/')
     .GETSTRINGVAL();

The SOAP web service call to delete a file. The 'UpdateListItems' method in the 'Lists' web service.
Be sure to enter your 'list_name', 'file_id', and 'http://path_to_file'. Be sure to remove any extra whitespace between the batch tags "because CAML is strongly typed" (because MS cant handle squat).

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/">
   <soapenv:Header/>
   <soapenv:Body>
      <soap:UpdateListItems>
         <soap:listName>list_name</soap:listName>
         <soap:updates>
       <Batch OnError="Continue" 
          ListVersion="1" 
          ViewName="">
         <Method ID="1" Cmd="Delete">
           <Field Name="ID">file_id</Field>
           <Field Name="FileRef">http://path_to_file</Field>
         </Method>
       </Batch>
    </soap:updates>
      </soap:UpdateListItems>
   </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>