Update device owner Contact profile¶

This library provides the ProfileUpdate API that allows you to update the Profile contact in the Contacts Provider database to ensure that it contains the same data as the contact and raw contacts you have in memory.

ℹ️ There can be only one device owner Contact, which is either set (not null) or not yet set (null). However, like other regular Contacts, the Profile Contact may have one or more RawContacts.

An instance of the ProfileUpdate API is obtained by,

val update = Contacts(context).profile().update()

If you want to update non-Profile Contacts, read Update contacts.

A basic update¶

To update the profile Contact and all of its RawContacts,

val updateResult = Contacts(context)
    .profile()
    .update()
    .contact(profile.mutableCopy {
        // make changes
    })
    .commit()

To update a profile RawContact directly,

val updateResult = Contacts(context)
    .update()
    .rawContacts(profile.rawContacts.first().mutableCopy {
        // make changes
    })
    .commit()

Deleting blanks¶

The API allows you to specify if you want the update operation to delete blank RawContacts 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 mutableProfile = profile.mutableCopy { ... }

val updateResult = contactsApi
    .profile()
    .update()
    .contact(mutableProfile)
    .commit()

To check if all updates succeeded,

val allUpdatesSuccessful = updateResult.isSuccessful

To check if a particular update succeeded,

val firstUpdateSuccessful = updateResult.isSuccessful(mutableProfile.rawContacts.first())

Once you have performed the updates, you can retrieve the updated profile Contact reference via the Query API,

val updatedProfile = Contacts(context).profile().query().find()

ℹ️ For more info, read Query device owner Contact profile.

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

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

val updatedProfile = profile.refresh(contactsApi)

To get an updated RawContact and Data,

val updatedProfileRawContact = profile.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.

ℹ️ For API 22 and below, the permission "android.permission.WRITE_PROFILE" is also required but only at the manifest level. Prior to API 23 (Marshmallow), permissions needed to be granted prior to installation instead of at runtime.

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

Modifiable Contact fields¶

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

The profile Contact has the same update restrictions as Contacts in general... 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.

Updating photos and thumbnails¶

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