Zombies: Undelete-able address book entries

[emsegal]

I am trying to clean out an address book programatically. I have code like this:

dim objBook
set objBook=addressbooks.item(addressbooknumber)
j=0
do until objbook.count < 1
objbook.item[j].delete
j=j+1
Loop
set objbook=nothing
endsub

However, this does not work. It seems to delete some entries, but not others. It does not delete the organizational entries that are automatically added when someone adds a person, and it does not delete entries with an email but no name.

For example, if I add:

name: John Smith
company: IBM Corp
email: JSmith@ibm.com

and
name:
company:
email: xyz@abc.com

There will be 3 entries in the address book: one for John Smith, one for IBM, and one for xyz@abc.com. If I run the code above, only the first one will be deleted. After that, objbook.count=0 so the program thinks it is done and quits.

I tried changing the code to the following:

dim objBook
set objBook=addressbooks.item(addressbooknumber).object.addressbookentries
j=0
do until objbook.count < 1
objbook.item[j].delete
j=j+1
Loop
set objbook=nothing
endsub

to use the Groupwise addressbook object but that produced identical results. Can you tell me how I can kill off these “zombie” address book entries? Thanks.

Topic

[Support 1a]

You generally need to work backwards when deleting items from a collection. Starting from the beginning, the value of Count decreases after each delete, resulting in some items being left over.

The following code should do what you want:

Sub Main(Client, GWEvent)

     Dim objAddressBooks
     Dim objAddessBook
     Dim objAddressBookEntry
     Dim iCount
     Dim x


     ' Get the address books object
     Set objAddressBooks = GroupWise.Account.AddressBooks


     ' Locate the address book called "Test Account"
     Set objAddressBook = objAddressBooks.Item("Test Account")

     
      iCount = objAddressBook.AddressBookEntries.Count
     
     for x = iCount to 1 step -1
      set objAddressBookEntry = objAddressBook.AddressBookEntries.Item(x)
      objAddressBookEntry.Delete
     next
     
     
     Set objAddressBooks = nothing

  
End Sub

Advansys Support

[emsegal]

Thanks, but that did not solve the problem. First, I think there were some errors in your code: AddressBookEntries is not a property of AddressBook.I got an error when I ran the code as you wrote it, so I changed it as follows:

Sub Main(Client, GWEvent)

Dim objAddressBooks
Dim objAddessBook
Dim objAddressBookEntry
Dim iCount
Dim x

‘ Get the address books object
Set objAddressBooks = GroupWise.Account.AddressBooks

‘ Locate the address book called “Test Account”
Set objAddressBook = objAddressBooks.Item(“Test Account”)

iCount = objAddressBook.Count

for x = iCount to 1 step -1
set objAddressBookEntry = objAddressBook.Item(x)
objAddressBookEntry.Delete
next

Set objAddressBooks = nothing

End Sub

This ended up having the same problem: it deletes the “normal” address book entries with a name and an email address, but it does not ignore the entries that either
a) have a name and no email address, or
b) are an entry for an organization only.
I can delete these manually, but I need to find a way for my program to do it.

If it would help, my system is on VNC, (like PCAnywhere) and you could take a look at what I am talking about. Thanks,

Eric

[Support 1a]

Eric,

A couple of us here have independently confirmed that the example code we posted does work. What were the exact errors you received when you ran our example code as-is?

AddressBookEntries is a property of the Object API AddressBook object. Here’s a link to the official Novell documentation for the AddressBook object:

Address Book Object documentation

Unfortunately, we could not get your code to run. The Object API AddressBook object does not have a count property. Is it possible the code you have posted is not exactly the same code as you are running? Formativ provides two ways to access the address books:

1) Via the wrapped address book objects exposed via the GroupWise.AddressBooks property. I suspect this might be the object you are referring to, as the AddressBook object exposed from here does have a Count property. However, this is not the object set our example code is using.

2) Via the native Object API, which is exposed via GroupWise.Account.AddressBooks. This object set is actually the native GroupWise Object API, and does have an AddressBookEntries property. This is the object our example code is using.

Regards,

Advansys Support

Thanks,

Advansys Support

[Author]

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