Jonas Schmid

While playing with Android, I wanted to get contact details from my contact list. I don’t know exactly why, but every type of contact (phone number, email, …) is stored on a different ContentProvider.

That is, you cannot get every contact detail using only one request. After some time looking for the best way to do it, I think I found something good, using no deprecated methods (like 90% of what I could see on the web). I guess it is the best solution

So, let’s dig into code!

First, don’t forget to request the permission to read contacts in AndroidManifest.xml:

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<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_CONTACTS" />

We will then get every contact and their ID using one request. Same for the phone numbers

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ContentResolver cr = getContentResolver();
Cursor cCur = cr.query(ContactsContract.Contacts.CONTENT_URI, null, null, null, null);
Cursor pCur = cr.query(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTENT_URI, null, null, null, null);

We can then remember the names using their ID

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HashMap contacts = new HashMap();
 
while (cCur.moveToNext()) {
  String id = cCur.getString(cCur.getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.Contacts.LOOKUP_KEY));
  String name = cCur.getString(cCur.getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME));
  contacts.put(id, name);
}

After that we can match phone number with contacts

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I just uploaded my CV/résumé I recently updated for my participation at Forum EPFL.

Please take a look at it!