Comments on: How can create a simple program to modify Windows Address Book and Outlook Address Book entries?

Question: How can create a simple program to modify Windows Address Book and Outlook Address Book entries?

mrbloo — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:53:09 -0800

I'd like to create a simple program that would modify the phone numbers in my MS Windows and MS Outlook Address Books (reason is we got new area codes). What is the simplest programming language on windows and best way to get this done by directly accessing the address books (without exporting to CSV)?

I've done some VBS with WMI, Windows batch scripting, perl, python, javascript, PHP.. so I understand programming but not programming with MS Windows DLLs and COMs and APIs etc.

I've done some searching and found it quite complicated to work with VC++ or a similar language on MS Windows so far. Any input would be much appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.

By: fusinski

fusinski — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:22:34 -0800

Visual Basic for Applications is your best bet.

Here's a good article on how to get started with Outlook VBA.

By: SuperSquirrel

SuperSquirrel — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:45:20 -0800

Visual Basic. You don't need to access dlls for this.

By: unixrat

unixrat — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:55:23 -0800

Here's a good start using VBA.

By: blue_wardrobe

blue_wardrobe — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:01:00 -0800

I know you said "without exporting to CSV", but if you bring it into Excel through CSV, you just do a global replace of the affected area code, and then import it in again.

Otherwise VBA. Something like this untested macro. Do not use without saving your contacts into another contacts backup folder!

Sub Clean_Contacts()
Dim myContacts As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Dim myContactItems As Outlook.Items
Dim currentContact As Outlook.ContactItem

Dim BadAreaCode As String
Dim NewAreaCode As String

Dim Dirty As Boolean

Dim p As Integer

Const OldNum = "(321)"
Const NewNum = "(456)"

Set myContacts = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)

Set myContactItems = myContacts.Items

'
' This code assumes all entries are contacts (no distribution lists)
'
For Each currentContact In myContactItems

Dirty = False
p = InStr(currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber & " ", OldNum)
If p > 0 Then

' Found (321) in tel number at position p
If p > 1 Then
currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber = Left(currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber, p - 1) & NewNum & Mid(currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber, p + Len(OldNum))
Else
currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber = NewNum & NewNum & Mid(currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber, p + Len(OldNum))
End If

' Add a category so you can find the banjaxed items if it goes wrong.
currentContact.Categories = currentContact.Categories & ",ex-" & OldNum

Dirty = True

End If

' You might have more conditional logic here. Set Dirty to True if you change the values

If Dirty Then currentContact.Save

Next

End Sub

By: blue_wardrobe

blue_wardrobe — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:01:30 -0800

Sorry about the lost indentation.

By: blue_wardrobe

blue_wardrobe — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:03:01 -0800

Bother - spotted an error already.

Instead of:

currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber = NewNum & NewNum & Mid(currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber, p + Len(OldNum))

it should be:

currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber = NewNum & Mid(currentContact.HomeTelephoneNumber, p + Len(OldNum))

By: mrbloo

mrbloo — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:09:28 -0800

Thanks a lot for those! :)

By: mrbloo

mrbloo — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 06:05:03 -0800

@blue_wardrobe - There were a few errors there, but I fixed them and thanks for that :) It works with Microsoft Outlook.

I also found how to interface with the Windows Address Book (Address book used in Outlook Express) using the open source, free COM located at http://wabaccess.sourceforge.net/ it does exactly what I wanted perfectly!

I just might post a link to the code of the application I with this to help out those who fall upon this page on their searches.

Thanks all once again.