How to call Android contacts list?

Question

I\'m making an Android app, and need to call the phone\'s contact list. I need to call the contacts list function, pick a contact, then return to my app with the contact\'s

Answer 1

Be careful while working with android contact list.

Reading contact list in above methods work on most android devices except HTC One and Sony Xperia. It wasted my six weeks trying to figure out what is wrong!

Most tutorials available online are almost similar - first read "ALL" contacts, then show in Listview with ArrayAdapter. This is not memory efficient solution. Instead of looking for solutions on other websites first, have a look at developer.android.com. If any solution is not available on developer.android.com you should look somewhere else.

The solution is to use CursorAdapter instead of ArrayAdapter for retrieving contact list. Using ArrayAdapter would work on most devices, but it's not efficient. The CursorAdapter retrieves only a portion of contact list at run time while the ListView is being scrolled.

public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onActivityCreated(savedInstanceState);
    ...
    // Gets the ListView from the View list of the parent activity
    mContactsList =
        (ListView) getActivity().findViewById(R.layout.contact_list_view);
    // Gets a CursorAdapter
    mCursorAdapter = new SimpleCursorAdapter(
            getActivity(),
            R.layout.contact_list_item,
            null,
            FROM_COLUMNS, TO_IDS,
            0);
    // Sets the adapter for the ListView
    mContactsList.setAdapter(mCursorAdapter);
}

Retrieving a List of Contacts: Retrieving a List of Contacts