How to access iOS Contacts in batches?

Question

I'm trying to implement a contacts reader in Xamarin.iOS which tries to iterate over the iOS contacts in all CNContactStore containers. Instead of loading all contacts into memory, I need to iterate over a contacts resultset batch by batch (paging contacts). However all the examples that I saw in SO load almost all contacts into memory first.

i.e. This question has loads of similar examples that read all contacts at once. Although these examples have logic which iterates one by one, it is not evident to me how to skip N and take the next N number of contacts without iterating from the beginning on the next call (which looks sub optimal at least to me).

Apple's own documentation reads

When fetching all contacts and caching the results, first fetch all contacts identifiers, then fetch batches of detailed contacts by identifiers as required

I was able to do this easily for Android using the cursor based approach available in its SDK. Is this at all possible for iOS? If not how can we handle a large number of contacts (e.g. something above 2000, etc.). I don't mind examples in swift. I should be able to convert them to Xamarin.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Here's the approach I took, granted my requirements did not allow persisting contacts, only holding in active memory. Not saying it's the right approach, but fetching all identifiers first, then lazily fetching all keys for a specific contact as needed, did improve performance. It also avoids performing a lookup when the contact doesn't exist. I also tried using NSCache instead of dictionary, but ran into issue when I needed to iterate over the cache.

I truncated functions that aren't relevant to the topic but hopefully still convey the approach.

import Contacts

extension CNContactStore {

    // Used to seed a Contact Cache with all identifiers
    func getAllIdentifiers() -> [String: CNContact]{

        // keys to fetch from store
        let minimumKeys: [CNKeyDescriptor] = [
            CNContactPhoneNumbersKey as CNKeyDescriptor,
            CNContactIdentifierKey as CNKeyDescriptor
        ]

        // contact request
        let request = CNContactFetchRequest(keysToFetch: minimumKeys)

        // dictionary to hold results, phone number as key
        var results: [String: CNContact] = [:]

        do {
            try enumerateContacts(with: request) { contact, stop in

                for phone in contact.phoneNumbers {
                    let phoneNumberString = phone.value.stringValue
                    results[phoneNumberString] = contact
                }
            }
        } catch let enumerateError {
            print(enumerateError.localizedDescription)
        }

        return results
    }

    // retreive a contact using an identifier
    // fetch keys lists any CNContact Keys you need
    func get(withIdentifier identifier: String, keysToFetch: [CNKeyDescriptor]) -> CNContact? {

        var result: CNContact?
        do {
            result = try unifiedContact(withIdentifier: identifier, keysToFetch: keysToFetch)
        } catch {
            print(error)
        }

        return result
    }
}

final class ContactsCache {

    static let shared = ContactsCache()

    private var cache : [String : ContactCacheItem] = [:]

    init() {

        self.initializeCache()  // calls CNContactStore().getAllIdentifiers() and loads into cache

        NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(contactsAppUpdated), name: .CNContactStoreDidChange, object: nil)
    }

    private func initializeCache() {

        DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async {

            let seed = CNContactStore.getAllIdentifiers()

            for (number, contact) in seed{

                let item = ContactCacheItem.init(contact: contact, phoneNumber: number )
                self.cache[number] = item
            }
        }
    }

    // if the contact is in cache, return immediately, else fetch and execute completion when finished. This is bit wonky to both return value and execute completion, but goal was to reduce visible cell async update as much as possible
    public func contact(for phoneNumber: String, completion: @escaping (CNContact?) -> Void) -> CNContact?{

        if !initialized {   // the cache has not finished seeding, queue request

            queueRequest(phoneNumber: phoneNumber, completion: completion)  // save request to be executed as soon as seeding completes
            return nil
        }

        // item is in cache
        if let existingItem = getCachedContact(for: phoneNumber) {

            // is it being looked up
            if existingItem.lookupInProgress(){
                existingItem.addCompletion(completion: completion)
            }
            // is it stale or has it never been looked up
            else if existingItem.shouldPerformLookup(){

                existingItem.addCompletion(completion: completion)
                refreshCacheItem( existingItem )
            }
            // its current, return it
            return existingItem.contact
        }

        // item is not in cache
        completion(nil)
        return nil
    }

    private func getCachedContact(for number: String) -> ContactCacheItem?  {
        return self.cache.first(where: { (key, _) in key.contains( number) })?.value
    }


    // during the async initialize/seeding of the cache, requests may come in from app, so they are temporarily 'queued'
    private func queueRequest(phoneNumber: String, completion: @escaping (CNContact?) -> Void){..}
    // upon async initialize/seeding completion, queued requests can be executed
    private func executeQueuedRequests() {..}
    // if app receives notification of update to user contacts, refresh cache
    @objc func contactsAppUpdated(_ notification: Notification) {..}
    // if a contact has gone stale or never been fetched, perform the fetch
    private func refreshCacheItem(_ item: ContactCacheItem){..}
    // if app receives memory warning, dump data
    func clearCaches() {..}
}

class ContactCacheItem : NSObject {

    var contact: CNContact? = nil
    var lookupAttempted : Date?  // used to determine when last lookup started
    var lookupCompleted : Date?  // used to determien when last successful looup completed
    var phoneNumber: String     //the number used to look this item up
    private var callBacks = ContactLookupCompletion()  //used to keep completion blocks for lookups in progress, in case multilpe callers want the same contact info

    init(contact: CNContact?, phoneNumber: String){..}
    func updateContact(contact: CNContact?){..}  // when a contact is fetched from store, update it here
    func lookupInProgress() -> Bool {..}
    func shouldPerformLookup() -> Bool {..}
    func hasCallBacks() -> Bool {..}
    func addCompletion(completion: @escaping (CNContact?) -> Void){..}
}