pick a contact from iPhone's address book and add a new phone number into it

Question

My scenario is to pick a contact from iPhone's address book and display it's name and first phone number into textfields and meanwhile programmatically add a phone number in its KABOtherLabel property.

I am using this code to add a contact programmatically;

-(IBAction)addContactToAddressBook:(id)sender
{
    CFErrorRef error = NULL;

    ABAddressBookRef iPhoneAddressBook = ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions(NULL, NULL);

    ABRecordRef newPerson = ABPersonCreate();

    ABRecordSetValue(newPerson, kABPersonFirstNameProperty, (__bridge CFTypeRef)(contactName.text), &error);


   ABMutableMultiValueRef multiPhone = ABMultiValueCreateMutable(kABMultiStringPropertyType);
ABMultiValueAddValueAndLabel(multiPhone, (__bridge CFTypeRef)(phoneNumber.text), kABPersonPhoneMobileLabel, NULL);
   ABMultiValueAddValueAndLabel(multiPhone, @"1-123-456-7890", kABPersonPhoneIPhoneLabel, NULL);
   ABMultiValueAddValueAndLabel(multiPhone, @"1-987-654-3210", kABOtherLabel, NULL);

   ABRecordSetValue(newPerson, kABPersonPhoneProperty, multiPhone,nil);
   CFRelease(multiPhone);

  ABAddressBookAddRecord(iPhoneAddressBook, newPerson, &error);
  ABAddressBookSave(iPhoneAddressBook, &error);

  if (error != NULL)
  {

    NSLog(@"Some error...");

  }

}

This code works perfectly.

And Im using following code to pick up a contact and display it in the text fields;

-(IBAction)pickContact:(id)sender
{
    ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *picker =

    [[ABPeoplePickerNavigationController alloc] init];

    picker.peoplePickerDelegate = self;

    [self presentViewController:picker animated:YES completion:nil];
}

//called when user presses the cancel button in the Address book view controller

- (void)peoplePickerNavigationControllerDidCancel:(ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *)peoplePicker

{
    [self dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil];
}


//called when user pics up a contact from the phone's address book

- (BOOL)peoplePickerNavigationController:

 (ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *)peoplePicker

      shouldContinueAfterSelectingPerson:(ABRecordRef)person {


    [self displayPerson:person]; //calls displayPerson:(ABRecordRef)person to show contact's information in the app

    [self dismissViewControllerAnimated:NO completion:NULL];
}






- (void)displayPerson:(ABRecordRef)person
{
    NSString* name = (__bridge_transfer   NSString*)ABRecordCopyValue(person,kABPersonFirstNameProperty); //Extracts the contact's first name from address book & assigns it to a string value
    //NSString* lastName = (__bridge_transfer NSString*)ABRecordCopyValue(person,kABPersonLastNameProperty); //Extracts the contact's last name from address book & assigns it to a string value

    self.contactName.text = name;

    NSString* phone = nil;

    //Extracts the first phone number among multiple contact numbers from address book & assigns it to a string value
   ABMultiValueRef phoneNumbers = ABRecordCopyValue(person,kABPersonPhoneProperty);

    if (ABMultiValueGetCount(phoneNumbers) > 0)
    {
      phone = (__bridge_transfer NSString*)

      ABMultiValueCopyValueAtIndex(phoneNumbers, 0);

    }
    else
   {
       phone = @"[None]";
   }

   self.phoneNumber.text = phone;




}

This code also works perfectly and I get the values in the required text fields.

However when I combine these both codes i-e write the following code at the end of displayPerson() method or call it from shouldContinueAfterSelectingPerson

The code I used to add detail in existing contact is as follows;

   CFErrorRef error = NULL;

   ABAddressBookRef myAddressBook = ABAddressBookCreateWithOptions(NULL, NULL);



   ABMutableMultiValueRef multiPhone = ABMultiValueCreateMutable(kABMultiStringPropertyType);

   ABMultiValueAddValueAndLabel(multiPhone, @"1-987-654-3210", kABPersonPhoneIPhoneLabel, NULL);

   ABRecordSetValue(person, kABPersonPhoneProperty, multiPhone,nil);
   CFRelease(multiPhone);

   ABAddressBookAddRecord(myAddressBook, person, &error);
   ABAddressBookSave(myAddressBook, &error);

   if (error != NULL)
   {

     NSLog(@"Some error");

   }

   return NO;

}

The problem is that only this number is added into the contact and all the other existing entries get removed. i-e this number overwrites all the other existing entries. Please help

Answer 1

ABRecordSetValue() sets the property of the record to the value you give it, overwriting any existing value for said property. Because you use ABMultiValueCreateMutable() to create a new, empty value list, you effectively ignore any values of kABPersonPhoneProperty that may already exist on the ABRecord.

Instead, your process for editing an existing record should be:

• Call ABRecordCopyValue() on a chosen record to get the existing value list
• Call ABMultiValueCreateMutableCopy() to get a mutable value list
• Add the desired phone number to the mutable value list with ABMultiValueAddValueAndLabel()
• Write the mutable value list with the phone number added back to the record with ABRecordSetValue()