update-contacts.md

Update contacts

This library provides the Update API that allows you to updates one or more contacts in the Contacts Provider database to ensure that it contains the same data as the contacts and raw contacts provided in memory.

An instance of the Update API is obtained by,

val update = Contacts(context).update()

ℹ️ If you want to update the device owner Contact Profile, read Update device owner Contact profile.

ℹ️ If you want to update a set of Data, read Update existing sets of data.

A basic update

To update a Contact and all of its RawContacts,

val updateResult = Contacts(context)
    .update()
    .contacts(johnDoe.mutableCopy {
       setOrganization {
           company = "Microsoft"
           title = "Newb"
       }
       emails().first().apply {
           address = "[email protected]"
       }
    })
    .commit()

To update a RawContact directly,

val updateResult = Contacts(context)
    .update()
    .rawContacts(johnDoeFromGmail.mutableCopy {
       setOrganization {
           company = "Microsoft"
           title = "Newb"
       }
       emails().first().apply {
           address = "[email protected]"
       }
    })
    .commit()

Deleting blanks

The API allows you to specify if you want the update operation to delete blank contacts or not,

.deleteBlanks(true|false)

For more info, read about Blank contacts.

Blank data are deleted

Blank data are data entities that have only null, empty, or blank primary value(s). Blanks are deleted by update APIs, unless the corresponding fields are not included in the operation.

For more info, read about Blank data.

Including only specific data

To perform update operations only the given set of fields (data),

.include(fields)

For example, to perform updates on only email and name fields,

.include { Email.all + Name.all }

For more info, read Include only certain fields for read and write operations.

Executing the update

To execute the update,

.commit()

Handling the update result

The commit function returns a Result,

val contactsApi =  Contacts(context)
val mutableContact1 = contact1.mutableCopy { ... }
val mutableContact2 = contact2.mutableCopy { ... }

val updateResult = contactsApi
    .update()
    .contacts(mutableContact1, mutableContact2)
    .commit()

To check if all updates succeeded,

val allUpdatesSuccessful = updateResult.isSuccessful

To check if a particular update succeeded,

val firstUpdateSuccessful = updateResult.isSuccessful(mutableContact1)

Once you have performed the updates, you can retrieve the updated Contacts references via the Query API,

val updatedContacts = contactsApi
    .query()
    .where { Contact.Id `in` listOf(contact1.id) }
    .find()

ℹ️ For more info, read Query contacts (advanced).

Alternatively, you may use the extensions provided in ContactRefresh and RawContactRefresh.

To get the updated Contact and all of its RawContacts and Data,

val updatedContact1 = contact1.refresh(contactsApi)

To get an updated RawContact and Data,

val updatedRawContact1 = contact1.rawContacts.first().refresh(contactsApi)

Cancelling the update

To cancel an update amid execution,

.commit { returnTrueIfUpdateShouldBeCancelled() }

The commit function optionally takes in a function that, if it returns true, will cancel update processing as soon as possible. The function is called numerous times during update processing to check if processing should stop or continue. This gives you the option to cancel the update.

For example, to automatically cancel the update inside a Kotlin coroutine when the coroutine is cancelled,

launch {
    withContext(coroutineContext) {
        val updateResult = update.commit { !isActive }
    }
}

Performing the update and result processing asynchronously

Updates are executed when the commit function is invoked. The work is done in the same thread as the call-site. This may result in a choppy UI.

To perform the work in a different thread, use the Kotlin coroutine extensions provided in the async module. For more info, read Execute work outside of the UI thread using coroutines.

You may, of course, use other multi-threading libraries or just do it yourself =)

ℹ️ Extensions for Kotlin Flow and RxJava are also in the project roadmap.

Performing the update with permission

Updates require the android.permission.WRITE_CONTACTS permissions. If not granted, the update will do nothing and return a failed result.

To perform the update with permission, use the extensions provided in the permissions module. For more info, read Permissions handling using coroutines.

You may, of course, use other permission handling libraries or just do it yourself =)

Custom data support

The Update API supports custom data. For more info, read Update custom data.

Modifiable Contact fields

As per documentation in android.provider.ContactsContract.Contacts,

ℹ️ Only certain columns of Contact are modifiable: STARRED, CUSTOM_RINGTONE, SEND_TO_VOICEMAIL. Changing any of these columns on the Contact also changes them on all constituent raw contacts.

The rest of the APIs provided in this library allow you to modify Data fields (e.g. Email, Phone, etc). Essentially, anything that the Contacts Provider allows for modification =)

Updating photos and thumbnails

To set full-sized photos (and by API design thumbnails), read Get set remove full-sized and thumbnail contact photos.

Local RawContacts

Updates to local RawContacts are not synced!

ℹ️ For more info, read Sync contact data across devices.