What are the Tags Around Default iPhone Address Book People Phone Number Labels?
abaddressbook, iphone, macos
Solution
I'm running into the same issue. This is what I think so far.
The markup that your seeing indicates to the system that this is a Default label and not a custom label. If you run this code: `NSLog(kABOtherLabel);`
you'll ge this result: `_$!<Other>!$_`
So that is the value stored in the `kABOtherLabel` constant (of type CFStringRef). I think the reason `iPhone` doesn't have the markup around it is becuase it's a 'Custom' label, but it's one originated by Apple instead of the user.
You can give the label any value you like, as evidenced by your `megaphone` label above. But notice that if you try and create a phone number (or e-mail address) with the label 'other' without using the `kABOtherLabel` constant or it's value `_$!<Other>!$_`, the system will think that you're creating a custom label. Like in this example:
ABMultiValueAddValueAndLabel(email, @"nospam@notarealdomain.com", @"other", NULL);
And if you go and edit that Address Book entry on the iPhone, it will show up in a separate list of custom labels. (So there will be 2 choices for 'other', one in the defaults and one in the custom labels)
While this hasn't answered your question, I hope it helps.
Problem
My question concerns markup that surrounds some of the default phone number labels in the Person entries of the Contact list on the iPhone. I have created an iPhone contact list address book entry for a person, "John Smith" with the following phone number entries: - Mobile (604) 123-4567 - iPhone (778) 123-4567 - Home (604) 789-4561 - Work (604) 456-7891 - Main (604) 789-1234 - megaphone (234) 567-8990 Note that the first five labels are default labels provided by the Contacts application and the last label, "megaphone", is a custom label. I wrote the following method to retrieve and display the labels and phone numbers for each person in the address book: ``` -(void)displayPhoneNumbersForAddressBook { ABAddressBookRef book = ABAddressBookCreate(); CFArrayRef people = ABAddressBookCopyArrayOfAllPeople(book); ABRecordRef record = CFArrayGetValueAtIndex(people, 0); ABMultiValueRef multi = ABRecordCopyValue(record, kABPersonPhoneProperty); NSLog(@"---------" ); NSLog(@"displayPhoneNumbersForAddressBook" ); CFStringRef label, phone; for (CFIndex i = 0; i < ABMultiValueGetCount(multi); ++i) { label = ABMultiValueCopyLabelAtIndex(multi, i); phone = ABMultiValueCopyValueAtIndex(multi, i); NSLog(@"label: \"%@\" number: \"%@\"", (NSString*)label, (NSString*)phone); CFRelease(label); CFRelease(phone); } NSLog(@"---------" ); CFRelease(multi); CFRelease(people); CFRelease(book); } ``` and here is the output for the address book entry that I entered: ``` 2010-03-08 13:24:28.789 test2m[2479:207] --------- 2010-03-08 13:24:28.789 test2m[2479:207] displayPhoneNumbersForAddressBook 2010-03-08 13:24:28.790 test2m[2479:207] label: "_$!<Mobile>!$_" number: "(604) 123-4567" 2010-03-08 13:24:28.790 test2m[2479:207] label: "iPhone" number: "(778) 123-4567" 2010-03-08 13:24:28.791 test2m[2479:207] label: "_$!<Home>!$_" number: "(604) 789-4561" 2010-03-08 13:24:28.791 test2m[2479:207] label: "_$!<Work>!$_" number: "(604) 456-7891" 2010-03-08 13:24:28.792 test2m[2479:207] label: "_$!<Main>!$_" number: "(604) 789-1234" 2010-03-08 13:24:28.792 test2m[2479:207] label: "megaphone" number: "(234) 567-8990" 2010-03-08 13:24:28.793 test2m[2479:207] --------- ``` What are the markup characters ``` _$!< and >!$_ ``` surrounding most, save for iPhone, of the default labels for? Can you point me to where in the "Address Book Programming Guide for iPhone OS" I can find the information? Thank you for your help.