How to insert 'profile' contact programmatically in Android?

Question

I'm building an app that accesses a users 'Profile' contact on Android. However, there are some cases where the user may not have a 'Profile' contact set up. In this case, I would like to programatically insert the profile contact. However, I am unable to achieve this.

Here is my code so far:

ArrayList<ContentProviderOperation> ops = new ArrayList<ContentProviderOperation>();
    int rawContactInsertIndex = ops.size();

    ops.add(ContentProviderOperation.newUpdate(ContactsContract.Profile.CONTENT_URI)
            .withValue(ContactsContract.RawContacts.ACCOUNT_TYPE, null)
            .withValue(ContactsContract.RawContacts.ACCOUNT_NAME,null )
            .build());
    ops.add(ContentProviderOperation.newInsert(ContactsContract.Data.CONTENT_URI)
            .withValueBackReference(ContactsContract.Data.RAW_CONTACT_ID, rawContactInsertIndex)
            .withValue(ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE, ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE)
            .withValue(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.NUMBER, "9X-XXXXXXXXX")
            .build());
 ops.add(ContentProviderOperation.newInsert(ContactsContract.Data.CONTENT_URI)
            .withValueBackReference(ContactsContract.Data.RAW_CONTACT_ID, rawContactInsertIndex)
            .withValue(ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE, ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.StructuredName.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE)
            .withValue(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.StructuredName.DISPLAY_NAME, "Mike Sullivan")
            .build());

    try {
        ContentProviderResult[] res = getActivity().getContentResolver().applyBatch(ContactsContract.AUTHORITY, ops);
    } catch (RemoteException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (OperationApplicationException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

But I get an exception:

java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: The profile contact is created automatically

So I tried to change the insert to an update like so:

ContentProviderOperation.newUpdate(ContactsContract.Profile.CONTENT_URI)

But still, nothing seems to happen, and no insertions are made. I even tried the update code while I had an existing profile contact, but it still does not work.

However, the documentation says that insertions and updations should be possible:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/ContactsContract.Profile.html

What am I not seeing here?

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 03 '15 at 07:16

I finally figured it out. I had to insert a raw contact into the 'profile' specific raw contacts table using ContactsContract.Profile.CONTENT_RAW_CONTACTS_URI. Here is the full code:

ArrayList<ContentProviderOperation> ops = new ArrayList<ContentProviderOperation>();
        int rawContactInsertIndex = ops.size();

        ops.add(ContentProviderOperation.newInsert(ContactsContract.Profile.CONTENT_RAW_CONTACTS_URI)
                .withValue(ContactsContract.RawContacts.ACCOUNT_TYPE, null)
                .withValue(ContactsContract.RawContacts.ACCOUNT_NAME,null )
                .build());
        ops.add(ContentProviderOperation.newInsert(ContactsContract.Data.CONTENT_URI)
                .withValueBackReference(ContactsContract.Data.RAW_CONTACT_ID, rawContactInsertIndex)
                .withValue(ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE, ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE)
                .withValue(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.NUMBER, number)
                .build());
        ops.add(ContentProviderOperation.newInsert(ContactsContract.Data.CONTENT_URI)
                .withValueBackReference(ContactsContract.Data.RAW_CONTACT_ID, rawContactInsertIndex)
                .withValue(ContactsContract.Data.MIMETYPE, ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.StructuredName.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE)
                .withValue(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.StructuredName.DISPLAY_NAME, name)
                .build());

        try {
            ContentProviderResult[] res = getActivity().getContentResolver().applyBatch(ContactsContract.AUTHORITY, ops);
        } catch (RemoteException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (OperationApplicationException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

Hope this helps someone!

How to insert 'profile' contact programmatically in Android?

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