How to use/access Phone Call Log in Android Application?

An Android Application can access the call log of the android phone. This is possible because the call log details are exposed by the Android platform as a content provider. Content Providers in Android allow applications to share data across applications (Refer: https://android-app-market.com/content-provider-in-android.html). Numerous inbuilt content providers are there with the Android platform. One such content Provider is the CallLog.Calls content provider.
(Refer: https://android-app-market.com/CallLog.Calls.html)
This article uses the CallLog.Calls content provider to access the call details stored in an Android phone.

Accessing the Call Log in an Android Activity

The following code snippet is an Activity created in the Android Application that lists the call log.

public class CallsLister extends Activity {

    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        String[] projection = new String[] {CallLog.Calls.NUMBER, CallLog.Calls.DATE, CallLog.Calls.CACHED_NAME};
        Uri contacts =  CallLog.Calls.CONTENT_URI;

        Cursor managedCursor = managedQuery(contacts, projection, null, null, CallLog.Calls.DATE + " ASC");
        getColumnData(managedCursor);
  ...
//Code for other functionality continues...
...
  ...
    }
    private void getColumnData(Cursor cur){
      try{
         if (cur.moveToFirst()) {
           String name;
           String number;
           long date;
           int nameColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(CallLog.Calls.CACHED_NAME);
           int numberColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(CallLog.Calls.NUMBER);
           int dateColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(CallLog.Calls.DATE);

           System.out.println("Reading Call Details: ");
           do {
               name = cur.getString(nameColumn);
               number = cur.getString(numberColumn);
               date = cur.getLong(dateColumn);
               System.out.println(number + ":"+ new Date(date) +":"+name);
  ...
   //Code for processing logic goes here
    ...

          } while (cur.moveToNext());
        }
    }

    finally{
      cur.close();
    }
  }
}

Querying a content provider requires the following data:

• The URI for the provider which in our example is given by the constant CallLog.Calls.CONTENT_URI
• The names of the data fields we require. In our example above the column names selected are given by the constants CallLog.Calls.CACHED_NAME, CallLog.Calls.NUMBER and CallLog.Calls.DATE.
• The data types for these fields are available as String (details are available at the link https://android-app-market.com/CallLog.Calls.html which documents the type of each column of CallLog.Calls content provider.)

The above activity can access the call log only if the permission to read the contacts is enabled for this application. You need to modify the android manifest file to enable this permission. The listing below shows the manifest file of the above application.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      package="com.demo"
      android:versionCode="1"
      android:versionName="1.0">
    <application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">
        <activity android:name=".EmergencyCallsLister"
                  android:label="@string/app_name">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
 ...
        </activity>

 ...
    </application>
    <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="2" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_CONTACTS"></uses-permission>
</manifest>

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