Quickest way to get the value of a date with a custom label?

Question

In Contacts I have set up a Date field with a custom label (when editing a contact you select Add Field-> Date -> Anniversary -> Add Custom Label).

This is stored in the ABMultiValue property of ID 'kABPersonDateProperty' with a label of (for example) 'Next Appointment'.

The ABMultiValue API has functions to tell me the label name at an index, read the value at an index and convert between ID/Index.

Please forgive me if I am being thick here but is the quickest way to get the date of the 'Next Appointment' to iterate the Multivalue field looking for the index of a matching label then copy the value of the property at that index? From what I can tell, the index will vary from record to record.

I realise there is a function to get an index from a property ID, but that means that at some point earlier I will have to have discovered the propertyID by going through all the records trying to find one with the 'Next Appointment' field in it to get its propertyid.

I want to view the date in a tableview and sort on it so I need to get the value as efficiently as possible. Has anyone got a method of doing this quickly, preferably with example code or a link for further info?

Answer 1

The approach you describe is correct. You will want to do something similar to Apple's sample code for multivalue properties from the Address Book Programming Guide for iPhone OS:

CFStringRef phoneNumber, phoneNumberLabel;
multi = ABRecordCopyValue(aRecord, kABPersonPhoneProperty);

for (CFIndex i = 0; i < ABMultiValueGetCount(multi); i++) {
    phoneNumberLabel = ABMultiValueCopyLabelAtIndex(multi, i);
    phoneNumber      = ABMultiValueCopyValueAtIndex(multi, i);

    /* ... do something with phoneNumberLabel and phoneNumber ... */

    CFRelease(phoneNumberLabel);
    CFRelease(phoneNumber);
}

CFRelease(aRecord);
CFRelease(multi);