Displaying ABAddressBook with contacts that have email only - iphone

Question

I want to display a ABAddressBook that only shows contacts with an email, so I tried something like this:
ABAddressBookRef addressBook = ABAddressBookCreate();
CFArrayRef allPeople = ABAddressBookCopyArrayOfAllPeople( addressBook );
CFIndex nPeople = ABAddressBookGetPersonCount( addressBook );
for( CFIndex emailIndex = 0; emailIndex < nPeople; emailIndex++ ) {
ABRecordRef person = CFArrayGetValueAtIndex( allPeople, emailIndex );
ABMutableMultiValueRef emailRef=ABRecordCopyValue(person, kABPersonEmailProperty);
int emailCount = ABMultiValueGetCount(emailRef);
if(emailCount == 0) {
ABAddressBookRemoveRecord(addressBook, person, NULL);
}
}
ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *picker = [[ABPeoplePickerNavigationController alloc] init];
picker.addressBook = addressBook;
picker.peoplePickerDelegate = self;
[self presentModalViewController:picker animated:YES];
The controller shows, but all the contacts are shown, and if I select the ones without an email, I get a crash. If I called ABAddressBookSave(), then it removes all contacts with an email, but it is a permanent change which even deletes them from the system contacts. What's the right way to do this?

Answer 1

You might need to build an array of contacts that have email, then display it on UITableViewController. This is a way to build such array: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13980023/745862. You can use ABPersonViewController or ABUnknownPersonViewController to display contact details.

Answer 2

Have you considered creating a temporary AddressBook and filling it with those contacts that have email addresses?

Answer 3

You remove all contacts without email address from AddressBook, but didn't save the AddressBook at the end. When the AddressBook is loaded from ABPeoplePickerNavigationController, all previous changes will be lost!
Try this:
if (ABAddressBookHasUnsavedChanges(addressBook))
ABAddressBookSave(addressBook, NULL)
BTW, don't forget to CFRelease() addressBook, allPeople and emailRef.

Answer 4

Did you try to show email values only like this:
ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *picker = [[ABPeoplePickerNavigationController alloc] init];
picker.displayedProperties = #[#(kABPersonEmailProperty)];
Perhaps that already does, what you want? Didn't test it though.

Answer 5

From iOS 8 the ABPeoplePickerNavigationController has a property that resolve your problem:
#property (nonatomic,copy) predicateForEnablingPerson
Code example from Apple doc: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/samplecode/PeoplePicker/Listings/PeoplePicker_AAPL_8or7_EmailPickerViewController_m.html)
ABPeoplePickerNavigationController* abPicker = [ABPeoplePickerNavigationController new];
abPicker.peoplePickerDelegate = self;
//...
if ([abPicker respondsToSelector:#selector(setPredicateForEnablingPerson:)]){
// The people picker will enable selection of persons that have at least one email address.
abPicker.predicateForEnablingPerson = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"emailAddresses.#count > 0"];
}
Note that from iOS9 the ABPeoplePickerNavigationController is deprecated, you can use the new CNContactPickerViewController in the same way with the property:
#property(nonatomic, copy) NSPredicate *predicateForEnablingContact
From the doc:
You can set a value for this property to determine which contact should become selectable, such as emailAddresses.#count > 0 to enable all the contacts that have an email address to become selectable. If no predicate is set for this property, all contacts become selectable.