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lib/AddressBook/DB/BBDB.pm  view on Meta::CPAN

__END__

=head1 NAME

bbdb - Perl extension for reading and writing bbdb files

=head1 SYNOPSIS

  use BBDB;
  my $x = new BBDB();
  $x->decode($string);
  my $str = $x->encode();
  # At this point, subject to the BUGS below
  # $str is the same as $string

  my $allR = BBDB::simple('/home/henry/.bbdb');
  map { print $_->part('first')} @$allR;   # print out all the first names


=head1 DESCRIPTION


=head2 Data Format

The following is the data layout for a BBDB record.  I have created a
sample record with my own data.  Each field is just separated by a
space.  I have added comments to the right

 ["Henry"                             The first name - a string
 "Laxen"                              The last name - a string
 ("Henry, Enrique")                   Also Known As - comma separated list
 "Elegant Solution"                   Business name - a string
 (["home" 415 789 1159 0]             Phone number field - US style
  ["fax" 415 789 1156 0]              Phone number field - US style
  ["mazatlan" "011-5269-164195"]      Phone number field - International style
 )
 (["mailing" "PMB 141"                Address field - There are 3 fields for
   "524 San Anselmo Ave." ""           for the street address, then one each
   "San Anselmo" "CA" (94960 2614)"     for City, State, and Zip Code
  ]
  ["mazatlan" "Reino de Navarra #757" Address field - Note that there is no
   "Frac. El Cid" ""                   field for Country.  That is unfortunate
   "Mazatlan" "Sinaloa, Mexico"        The zip code field is quoted if its
   ("CP" "82110")                      not an integer
  ]
  )
 ("nadine.and.henry@pobox.com"        The net addresses - a list of strings
  "maztravel@maztravel.com")
 ((creation-date . "1999-09-02")      The notes field - a list of alists
  (timestamp . "1999-10-17")
  (notes . "Always split aces and eights")
  (birthday "6/15")
 )
 nil                                  The cache vector - always nil
 ]

After this is decoded it will be returned as a reference to a BBDB
object.  The internal structure of the BBDB object mimics the lisp
structure of the BBDB string.  It consists of a reference to an array
with 9 elements The Data::Dumper output of the above BBDB string would
just replaces all of the ()s with []s.  It can be accessed by using
the C<$bbdb->part('all')> method.

=head2 Methods

=over 4

=item new()

called whenever you want to create a new BBDB object.  
       my $bbdb = new BBDB();

=item part(name [value])

Called to get or set all or part of a BBDB object.  The parts of the
object are: 

       all first last aka company phone address net notes

any other value in the name argument results in death.  Some of these
parts, namely phone, address, net, and notes have an internal
structure and are returned as references to arrays.  The others are
returned just as strings.  The optional second argument sets the part
of this BBDB object to the value you provided.  There is no
consistency checking at this point, so be sure the value you are
setting this to is correct.

 my $first = $bbdb->part('first');    # get the value of the first field
 $bbdb->part('last','Laxen');         # set the value of the last field
 my $everything = $bbdb->part('all'); # get the whole record

=item BBDB::simple(file_name,[array_ref_of_bbdb])

This is a "simple" interface for reading or writing an entire BBDB
file. If called with one argument, it returns a reference to an array of BBDB
objects.  Each object contains the data from the file.  Thus the
number of BBDB entries equals C<scalar(@$bbdb)> if you use:

       $bbdb = BBDB::simple('/home/henry/.bbdb');

If called with two arguments, the first is the filename to create, and
the second is a reference to an array of BBDB objects, such as was
returned in the one argument version.  The objects are scanned for
unique user defined fields, which are written out as the 2nd line in
the BBDB file, and then the individual records are written out.

=item decode(string)

Takes a string as written in a BBDB file of a single BBDB record
and decodes it into its PERL representation.  Returns undef if
it couldn't decode the record for some reason, otherwise returns
true.  

       $bbdb->decode($entry);

=item encode()

This is the inverse of decode.  Takes an internal PERL version of
a BBDB records and returns a string which is a lisp version of the
data that BBDB understands.  There are some ambiguities, noted in