How to get phone number from address book as string?

Question

I have a text field with a contact name and I want to get the phone number for that:

ABAddressBookRef adressBook = ABAddressBookCreate();

NSArray *people = (NSArray *)ABAddressBookCopyPeopleWithName(adressBook,
                               CFStringCreateCopy(kCFAllocatorDefault, 
                                                 (CFStringRef)recipient));

if((people != nil) && ([people count] == 1)){
    ABMultiValueRef person = (ABMultiValueRef)[people objectAtIndex:0];
    NSString *phone = (NSString *)ABRecordCopyValue(person, 
                                                      kABPersonPhoneProperty) ;
    NSLog(@"%@", phone);
}

I want the phone number as string but this gives me a lot more:

ABMultiValueRef 0x339470 with 1 value(s)
    0: _$!<Mobile>!$_ (0x338c50) - 0177 1647788 (0x339450)

How to I get just the number as string?

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 13 '11 at 18:25

11

NSMutableArray *phoneNumbers = [[[NSMutableArray alloc] init] autorelease];
ABMultiValueRef multiPhones = ABRecordCopyValue(person,kABPersonPhoneProperty);
for(CFIndex i=0;i<ABMultiValueGetCount(multiPhones);++i) {
    CFStringRef phoneNumberRef = ABMultiValueCopyValueAtIndex(multiPhones, i);
    NSString *phoneNumber = (NSString *) phoneNumberRef;

    [phoneNumbers addObject:phoneNumber];
}

answered Apr 13 '11 at 18:25

unexpectedvalue

6,019
3
35
62

thanks that helped, but why I need to loop over it since I have just one contact? you example gives me ( 1222... ) with that round brackets, how to get the string without the brackets? – Upvote Apr 13 '11 at 18:53
One contact can have multiple numbers, the numbers will be stored in the array 'phoneNumbers'. To get the first: [phoneNumbers objectAtIndex:0] – unexpectedvalue Apr 14 '11 at 09:23

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 13 '11 at 18:26

2

kABPersonPhoneProperty is a multi-value property, but you're treating it as a string. You should get the individual numbers and print them separately.

answered Apr 13 '11 at 18:26

Caleb

120,112
19
171
259

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 14 '12 at 22:43

For those searching for phone extraction. You can extract the phone numbers from a text and then replace it with @"", for example:

NSString *userBody = @"This is a text with 30612312232 my phone";
if (userBody != nil) {
    NSError *error = NULL;
    NSDataDetector *detector = [NSDataDetector dataDetectorWithTypes:NSTextCheckingTypePhoneNumber error:&error];
    NSArray *matches = [detector matchesInString:userBody options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, [userBody length])];
    if (matches != nil) {
        for (NSTextCheckingResult *match in matches) {
            if ([match resultType] == NSTextCheckingTypePhoneNumber) {
                DbgLog(@"Found phone number %@", [match phoneNumber]);
            }
        }
    }
}

`

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 11 '11 at 08:46

1

CFStringRef phoneRef = ABRecordCopyValue(person, kABPersonPhoneProperty) ;
NSString *phoneNumber = (NSString *) phoneRef;

answered Apr 11 '11 at 08:46

malinois

6,594
3
33
54

thanks, but you code still gives me the same result as in my question, I want just the number – Upvote Apr 11 '11 at 08:54

How to get phone number from address book as string?

4 Answers4

Linked