Adding a Lookup Column to a SharePoint List

This took me a heckuva lot longer to get working right than I will ever admit. I thought the end result was nice and tidy. This example shows how to take a list from one web, and populate a column in another list based on the values from the first. Modifications to the first list will be reflected in any columns that reference that list via lookup.

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
{
    using (SPSite website = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.ID))
    {
        website.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;                  

        SPWeb newWeb = website.OpenWeb(_newWeb.ID);
        newWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

        #region Add Lookup Column to new doc lib
        SPDocumentLibrary newDocLib = (SPDocumentLibrary)newWeb.Lists["Documents"];

        // Grab list guid and the web container
        Guid customListGuid = ListManager.GetGuid(SPContext.Current.Web, “MyCustomWebList”);

        newCRFDocLib.Fields.AddLookup(”Some Descriptive Field Name”, customListGuid, SPContext.Current.Web.ID, false);

        // Add the new lookup field to the default view.
        SPField fld = newCRFDocLib.Fields["Some Descriptive Field Name"];
        SPView defaultView = newCRFDocLib.DefaultView;
        SPViewFieldCollection viewFields = defaultView.ViewFields;

        viewFields.Add(”Some Descriptive Field Name”);
        defaultView.Update();

        ListManager.ReorderField(newWeb.Lists["Documents"], fld, 0);
    }
}       

public static Guid GetGuid(SPWeb web, String listName)
{
    foreach (SPList list in web.Lists)
    {
        if (true == list.Title.Equals(listName, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
            return list.ID;
    }
    return Guid.Empty;
}