title: How do I read LookUp fields with multiple values in SharePoint?
body: <p>Hi and thanks for looking!</p>
  <h1>Background</h1>
  <p>I have inherited an old .NET project based on SharePoint 2007 and have designed and external core library which merely accesses SP data, therefore making SP just a backend.  Yes, I know it would be better to migrate to SQL, but the client doesn't agree.</p>
  <p>The previous developers used a simple read method to read the data in a SP list:</p>
  <pre><code>  SPList list = CurrentRootWeb.Lists[&quot;SomeListName&quot;];
  </code></pre>
  <p>And then they access list properties through a dictionary of sorts (i.e. for each item in list, get item[&quot;SomeValue&quot;]).</p>
  <p>I am not skilled in SharePoint, so I don't know if this is the most efficient manner to go about accessing it's data.</p>
  <h1>Problem</h1>
  <p>How do I read LookUp fields with multiple values in SharePoint?</p>
  <p>Every property they request seems to want a string in return.  So <code>item[SomeString]</code> is okay, but <code>item[SomeList]</code> makes everything barf!  I would have thought that a multi-value lookup list column comes in as a serialized or delimited string holding the selected values (example: &quot;red;blue;green&quot;).  What am I missing?</p>
  <p>Thanks!</p>