CODEWITHSUNDEEP
android
Chad Schultz
Chad Schultz

Reputation: 7860

Search contacts provider for phone numbers in multiple formats?

I've been working on a block of code to let the user search (character by character using an AutoCompleteTextView) contacts by name, email or phone number. I've worked out the below code:

// General contact data, so we have to get the DATA1 attribute and use MIMETYPE
                    // to figure out what it is. Usually we'd query, say, ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Email.CONTENT_URI
                    Uri uri = ContactsContract.Data.CONTENT_URI;
                    // Limit the query results to only the columns we need for faster operations.
                    // Using a projection also seems to make the query DISTINCT
                    String[] projection    = new String[] {ContactsContract.Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME,
                            ContactsContract.Data.DATA1,
                            ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE};
                    // Find contact records with an email address or phone number
                    // Search the name and data1 field (which may contain an email or phone number)
                    // for user-entered search phrase
                    String filter = "(" + ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE + "=? OR " + ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE + "=?)"
                            + " AND (" + ContactsContract.Data.DATA1 + " LIKE ? OR " + ContactsContract.Data.DISPLAY_NAME + " LIKE ?)";
                    String wildcardedConstraint = "%" + constraintString + "%";
                    String[] filterParams = new String[]{ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Email.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE, ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE, wildcardedConstraint, wildcardedConstraint};
                    // Sort contacts with the most recently contacted ones first. That's often 0 (unset)
                    // so do a sub-sort by last updated date, most recent contacts first
                    String orderBy = ContactsContract.Contacts.LAST_TIME_CONTACTED + " DESC, " + ContactsContract.Contacts.CONTACT_LAST_UPDATED_TIMESTAMP + " DESC";
                    Cursor cursor = getContext().getContentResolver().query(uri, projection, filter, filterParams, orderBy);
                    if (cursor != null) {
                        while (cursor.moveToNext()) {
                            String name = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.Data.DISPLAY_NAME));
                            String data1 = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.Data.DATA1));
                            String mimetype = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE));
                            String number = null;
                            String email = null;
                            if (mimetype.equals(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Email.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE)) {
                                email = data1;
                            } else if (mimetype.equals(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE)) {
                                number = data1;
                            }

                            items.add(new Person(name, number, email));

                            Log.e("temp", name + " " + data1 + " " + mimetype);
                        }

                        cursor.close();
                    }

There is a problem with the phone number search, however. In contacts, phone numbers are in many different formats:

And so on.

How can I adapt my Contacts query filter so the user's input will find phone numbers in any format--preferably without making the entire query extremely slow?

Some solutions I've found rely on editing table data to standardize the phone numbers, which isn't an option with contacts. Maybe that normalized number field would work... if I could find a way to easily build it into this query on the Contacts Data table. I know I could do extra phone number searches for each record, or use Java to make the checks, but I think that would make it very slow. Perhaps a regexp SQL operator in the query--but I don't know how I could make it work for the user's character-by-character search where they may have only entered part of the phone number.

Any ideas?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1392

Answers (1)

Mike M.
Mike M.

Reputation: 39191

You can do this with Android's built-in SQLite function PHONE_NUMBERS_EQUAL, which compares two numbers and will return 1 if they're identical enough for caller ID purposes.

You simply need to change your filter as follows:

String filter = "(" + ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE + "=? OR "
    + ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE + "=?) AND "
    + "(PHONE_NUMBERS_EQUAL(" + ContactsContract.Data.DATA1 + ", ?, 0) OR "
    + ContactsContract.Data.DATA1 + " LIKE ? OR "
    + ContactsContract.Data.DISPLAY_NAME + " LIKE ?)";

And add another wildcardedConstraint to your filterParams:

String[] filterParams = new String[] { ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Email.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE,
                                       ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE,
                                       wildcardedConstraint,
                                       wildcardedConstraint,
                                       wildcardedConstraint };

The final INTEGER parameter in the PHONE_NUMBERS_EQUAL function indicates whether to use strict number comparation; 1 meaning do use strict, 0 meaning non-strict. Apparently this is a system-wide setting that can be retrieved from the system Resources, but I am uncertain as to what factors dictate how this is determined for a particular environment. The example above just uses non-strict comparation. However, if it is a concern, the actual resource value can be obtained like so:

private static final String STRICT_COMPARE = "config_use_strict_phone_number_comparation";

...

int strictResId = Resources.getSystem().getIdentifier(STRICT_COMPARE, "bool", "android");
boolean useStrict = Resources.getSystem().getBoolean(strictResId);

Upvotes: 2

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