Sitecore set multi reference field value programmatically

Question

How to set a multi-reference field value programmatically if I have collection of items/ids?

E.g. Build following raw value "{guid1}|{guid2}|{guid3}..."

In my specific case I need to import a tree of items and on one level a parent was using children as repository and it also had a multi reference list to a subset of the children based on some criteria. I wanted to build a flexible list based on ordering or filtering and then set value of parent without making code specific to a list type - parent field can be any list.

E.g. Custom list with rule "where [is odd] orderby child desc" build for each Parent and set to field "Odd"

Parent1 -> Parent1["Odd"] = 5
- 2
- 5
Parent2 -> Parent2["Odd"] = 3,1
- 1
- 2
- 3

possible duplicate of how to programmatically set a value of Treelist in sitecore — Zachary Kniebel
"... Yes! Stack Exchange has always explicitly encouraged users to answer their own questions ... " stackoverflow.com/help/self-answer — pgk
@ZacharyKniebel Both my question and answer are MUCH more generic (better) than the possible duplicate that you have referenced — pgk
Yup, Jeff Attwood even blogged about it: blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/… Don't like the question/answer? Then downvote it. — jammykam

pgk pgk · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-24T16:10:09

Use class Sitecore.Text.ListString to build the value

Example:

// Incomplete code snippet assumes variable Item item with list field "References" 
// and IEnumerable<ID> references

Sitecore.Text.ListString referencesValue = new Sitecore.Text.ListString();

foreach(ID id in references)
{
   string idString = id.ToString();
   if (!referencesValue.Contains(idString))
   {
       referencesValue.Add(idString);
   }
}    

item.Editing.BeginEdit();
item["References"] = referencesValue.ToString();
item.Editing.EndEdit();

Sitecore set multi reference field value programmatically

2 Answers