Creating Records

Creating a record in BBDB is not like creating a record in graphical address book programs. You will be prompted for each field through the minibuffer, one field at a time. Don’t worry about making mistakes while entering data, as you can always edit the records afterwards.

To create a record, use the command M-x bbdb-create. Here are the prompts you’ll encounter:

Press RET to skip any fields for which you don’t have information. To
cancel the entry process, type C-g (keyboard-quit).

After you create the record, Emacs will display the record in another
window. You can then switch to the record and edit it. See Project XXX: Edit a BBDB record.

Searching Records

To search for a specific record, type M-x bbdb, or press b
(bbdb) while in the BBDB buffer. This prompts for a regular
expression and searches the name, company, network address, and notes
fields of all the records for a match against the regular expression
supplied. M-x bbdb-name, M-x bbdb-company, M-x bbdb-net, M-x
bbdb-notes, and M-x bbdb-phones search the corresponding fields only.

Updating Records

After creating or searching for a record, you can switch to the BBDB
window to edit it. Press C-o (bbdb-insert-field) to insert
custom fields. You can use tab completion on existing field names, and
you can also define your own fields by typing any field name. For
example, you may want to store people’s job titles in a field called
“job”.

To edit the value of a field, move your cursor to the field and press
e (bbdb-edit-current-field) to change the value. To delete
a field, move your cursor to the field and press C-k
(bbdb-delete-current-field-or-record).

Deleting Records

To delete an entire record, move the text cursor to the name and press C-k (bbdb-delete-current-field-or-record). You will be prompted for confirmation. Be careful! If you mistakenly delete a record, there’s no easy way to get it back. Fortunately, BBDB stores its data in a plain text file (~/.bbdb). Back up that file regularly and you’ll be able to recover from mistakes. You can also set up automatic file backups in Emacs (see Project XXX: Make Automatic Backups).

Now you know how to work with individual records. How can you import your address book information from other programs?

The main address book and contact management module for Emacs is the Insidious Big Brother Database (BBDB), which can be integrated into several mail clients and other modules within Emacs. If you use BBDB to keep track of contact information, you’ll be able to look up phone numbers or add notes to people’s records from your Emacs-based mail. Even if you don’t do e-mail within Emacs, you’ll find that BBDB’s customizability makes it surprisingly powerful.

In this project, you will learn how to set up BBDB as a basic address book. The BBDB homepage is at http://bbdb.sourceforge.net/. The development version fixes a number of bugs, so I recommend you try it instead of the stable version. However, if you are on Microsoft Windows or you do not have development tools handy, you might find the stable version easier to install. As of this writing, the stable version (2.35) can be downloaded from http://bbdb.sourceforge.net/bbdb-2.35.tar.gz . Download and unpack it to ~/elisp/bbdb-2.35, and save the pre-built bbdb-autoloads.el from http://bbdb.sourceforge.net/bbdb-autoloads.el into ~/elisp/bbdb-2.35/lisp .

To check out the development version, change to your ~/elisp directory and type in the following lines at the command prompt:

cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@bbdb.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/bbdb login
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@bbdb.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/bbdb checkout bbdb

You should now have a directory called ~/elisp/bbdb. Change to that directory and run the following commands:

autoconf
./configure
make autoloads
make all

After installing either the stable or development version of BBDB, include it in your load-path by adding the appropriate line to your ~/.emacs:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/elisp/bbdb-2.35/lisp")    ;; (1)
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/elisp/bbdb/lisp")         ;; (2)

(require 'bbdb) ;; (3)
(bbdb-initialize 'gnus 'message)   ;; (4)
(setq bbdb-north-american-phone-numbers-p nil)   ;; (5)

Use either ~/elisp/bbdb-2.35/lisp(1) or ~/elisp/bbdb/lisp(2) depending on the location of the installed BBDB Lisp files. Then load BBDB(3) and configure it for the Gnus mail client and the Message mode used to compose mail(4). It’s also a good idea to configure BBDB to accept any kind of phone number(5), not just North American numbers with a particular syntax.

After you evaluate this code or restart Emacs, BBDB should be part of your system. Next step: enter your address book!

I like starting my e-mail with a short salutation such as “Hello, Mike!”, “Hello, Michael”, or “Hello, Mikong!”, but it can be hard to remember which nicknames people prefer to use, and calling someone by the wrong name is a bit of a faux pas. Sometimes people sign e-mail with their preferred name, but what if you haven’t sent e-mail to or received e-mail from someone in a while? In this project, you’ll learn how to set up my BBDB to remember people’s nicknames for you using a custom “nick” field, and to use those nicknames when replying to messages in Gnus or composing messages from my BBDB.

The nickname code worked so well that I started thinking of what else I could customize. It was easy to go from nicknames to personalized salutations. This hack started because one of my friends is from Romania, so I thought I’d greet her in Romanian with “Salut, Letitia!” instead of just “Hello, Letitia!”. The code in this project uses a “hello” field to store these salutations in your BBDB.

To set up personalized nicknames and salutations, add the following code to your ~/.emacs:

For BBDB v2

(defvar wicked/gnus-nick-threshold 5 "*Number of people to stop greeting individually. Nil means always greet individually.")  ;; (1)
(defvar wicked/bbdb-hello-string "Hello, %s!" "Format string for hello. Example: \"Hello, %s!\"")
(defvar wicked/bbdb-hello-all-string "Hello, all!" "String for hello when there are many people. Example: \"Hello, all!\"")
(defvar wicked/bbdb-nick-field 'nick "Symbol name for nickname field in BBDB.")
(defvar wicked/bbdb-salutation-field 'hello "Symbol name for salutation field in BBDB.")

(defun wicked/gnus-add-nick-to-message ()
  "Inserts \"Hello, NICK!\" in messages based on the recipient's nick field."
  (interactive)
  (save-excursion
    (let* ((bbdb-get-addresses-headers ;; (2)
            (list (assoc 'recipients bbdb-get-addresses-headers)))
           (recipients (bbdb-get-addresses
                        nil
                        gnus-ignored-from-addresses
                        'gnus-fetch-field))
           recipient nicks rec net salutations)
      (goto-char (point-min))
      (when (re-search-forward "--text follows this line--" nil t)
        (forward-line 1)
        (if (and wicked/gnus-nick-threshold 
                 (>= (length recipients) wicked/gnus-nick-threshold))
            (insert wicked/bbdb-hello-all-string "\n\n") ;; (3)
          (while recipients
            (setq recipient (car (cddr (car recipients))))
            (setq net (nth 1 recipient))
            (setq rec (car (bbdb-search (bbdb-records) nil nil net)))
            (cond
             ((null rec) ;; (4)
              (add-to-list 'nicks (car recipient))) 
             ((bbdb-record-getprop rec wicked/bbdb-salutation-field) ;; (5)
              (add-to-list 'salutations 
                           (bbdb-record-getprop rec wicked/bbdb-salutation-field))) 
             ((bbdb-record-getprop rec wicked/bbdb-nick-field) ;; (6)
              (add-to-list 'nicks 
                           (bbdb-record-getprop rec wicked/bbdb-nick-field)))
             (t (bbdb-record-name rec))) ;; (7) 
            (setq recipients (cdr recipients))))
        (when nicks ;; (8)
          (insert (format wicked/bbdb-hello-string 
                          (mapconcat 'identity (nreverse nicks) ", "))
                  " "))
        (when salutations ;; (9)
          (insert (mapconcat 'identity salutations " ")))
        (when (or nicks salutations)
          (insert "\n\n")))))
  (goto-char (point-min)))

(defadvice gnus-post-news (after wicked/bbdb activate)
  "Insert nicknames or custom salutations."
  (wicked/gnus-add-nick-to-message))

(defadvice gnus-msg-mail (after wicked/bbdb activate)
  "Insert nicknames or custom salutations."
  (wicked/gnus-add-nick-to-message))

(defadvice gnus-summary-reply (after wicked/bbdb activate)
  "Insert nicknames or custom salutations."
  (wicked/gnus-add-nick-to-message))

For BBDB v3

;; This version is for BBDBv3 - thanks, Thomas!

(defvar wicked/gnus-nick-threshold 5 "*Number of people to stop greeting individually. Nil means always greet individually.")  ;; (1)
(defvar wicked/bbdb-hello-string "Hello, %s!" "Format string for hello. Example: \"Hello, %s!\"")
(defvar wicked/bbdb-hello-all-string "Hello, all!" "String for hello when there are many people. Example: \"Hello, all!\"")
(defvar wicked/bbdb-nick-field 'nick "Symbol name for nickname field in BBDB.")
(defvar wicked/bbdb-salutation-field 'hello "Symbol name for salutation field in BBDB.")

(defun wicked/gnus-add-nick-to-message ()
  "Inserts \"Hello, NICK!\" in messages based on the recipient's nick field."
  (interactive)
  (let ((recipients (bbdb-get-address-components))
        recipient nicks rec net salutations)
    (goto-char (point-min))
    (when (re-search-forward "--text follows this line--" nil t)
      (forward-line 1)
      (if (and wicked/gnus-nick-threshold 
               (>= (length recipients) wicked/gnus-nick-threshold))
          (insert wicked/bbdb-hello-all-string "\n\n") ;; (3)
        (while recipients
          (setq recipient (car recipients))
          (setq net (nth 1 recipient))
          (setq rec (car (bbdb-search (bbdb-records) nil nil net)))
          (cond
           ((null rec) ;; (4)
            (add-to-list 'nicks (car recipient))) 
           ((bbdb-record-xfield rec wicked/bbdb-salutation-field) ;; (5)
            (add-to-list 'salutations 
                         (bbdb-record-xfield rec wicked/bbdb-salutation-field))) 
           ((bbdb-record-xfield rec wicked/bbdb-nick-field) ;; (6)
            (add-to-list 'nicks 
                         (bbdb-record-xfield rec wicked/bbdb-nick-field)))
           (t
            (add-to-list 'nicks
                         (car (split-string (bbdb-record-name rec)))))) ;; (7) 
          (setq recipients (cdr recipients))))
      (when nicks ;; (8)
        (insert (format wicked/bbdb-hello-string 
                        (mapconcat 'identity (nreverse nicks) ", "))
                " "))
      (when salutations ;; (9)
        (insert (mapconcat 'identity salutations " ")))
      (when (or nicks salutations)
        (insert "\n\n")))))

(defadvice gnus-post-news (after wicked/bbdb activate)
  "Insert nicknames or custom salutations."
  (wicked/gnus-add-nick-to-message))

(defadvice gnus-msg-mail (after wicked/bbdb activate)
  "Insert nicknames or custom salutations."
  (wicked/gnus-add-nick-to-message))

(defadvice gnus-summary-reply (after wicked/bbdb activate)
  "Insert nicknames or custom salutations."
  (wicked/gnus-add-nick-to-message))

After you add this code, you can store personalized nicknames and salutations in your BBDB. Nicknames and salutations will be looked up using people’s e-mail addresses. While in the *BBDB* buffer, you can type C-o (bbdb-insert-new-field) to add a field to the current record. Add a nick field with the person’s nickname, or a hello field with a custom salutation. When you compose a message to or reply to a message from that person, the salutation or nickname will be included. If no nickname can be found, the recipient’s name will be used instead.

A number of variables can be used to modify the behavior of this code(1). For example, you may or may not want to greet 20 people individually. The default value of wicked/gnus-nick-threshold is to greet up to four people individually, and greet more people collectively. If you always want to greet people individually, add (setq wicked/gnus-nick-threshold nil) to your ~/.emacs. If you want to change the strings used to greet people individually or collectively, change wicked/bbdb-hello-string and wicked/bbdb-hello-all-string. If you want to store the data into different fields, change wicked/bbdb-nick-field and wicked/bbdb-salutation-field, but note that old data will not be automatically copied to the new fields.

Here’s how the code works. First, it retrieves the list of addresses from the header(2). If there are more addresses than wicked/gnus-nick-threshold, then wicked/bbdb-hello-all-string is used to greet everyone. If not, each recipient address is looked up. If the recipient cannot be found in your BBDB, then the recipient’s name or e-mail address is used(4). If there is a personalized salutation, it is used(5). If there is a nickname, it is used(6). If the person has a record but neither salutation or nickname, then the name of the record is used(7). After all recipients have been processed, the names are added to the message(8), followed by the salutations(9). This function is added to the different Gnus message-posting functions, so it should be called whenever you compose or reply to messages.

Now that I have an idea of what a good Wicked Cool Emacs book chapter looks like, I find it much easier to write and edit chapters. I’ve just finished revising my first three chapters based on my editor’s feedback, and they will be finding their way to my technical reviewer soon. Bursty productivity indeed.

Oh, that and productive application of structured procrastination… =)

You can use “a” (bbdb-add-or-remove-mail-alias) in BBDB buffers to add a mail alias to the current entry, or “* a” to add a mail alias to all displayed entries. I use mail aliases to tag or categorize my contacts (example: emacs, writing, etc.). The following functions can make it easy for you to filter displayed records using a combination of keywords:

Here’s the code:

(defun sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias-match-all (query-aliases record-aliases)
  "Return non-nil if all QUERY-ALIASES are in RECORD-ALIASES."
  (let ((result t))
    (while query-aliases
      (unless (member (car query-aliases) record-aliases)
        (setq query-aliases nil
              result nil))
      (setq query-aliases (cdr query-aliases)))
    result))

(defun sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias-match-any (query-aliases record-aliases)
  "Return non-nil if any in QUERY-ALIASES can be found in RECORD-ALIASES."
  (let (result)
    (while query-aliases
      (when (member (car query-aliases) record-aliases)
        (setq query-aliases nil
              result t))
      (setq query-aliases (cdr query-aliases)))
    result))

;; Moved this to a convenience function so that we don't
;; have to deal with invert and property splitting.
(defun sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias (bbdb-records
                                   alias-filter-function
                                   query
                                   &optional invert)
  "Return only the BBDB-RECORDS that match ALIAS-FILTER-FUNCTION.
ALIAS-FILTER-FUNCTION should accept two arguments:
 - QUERY, a list of keywords to search for
 - aliases, a list of keywords from the record
If INVERT is non-nil, return only the records that do
not match."
  (delq nil
        (mapcar
         (lambda (rec)
           (if (funcall alias-filter-function
                        query
                        (split-string
                         (or (bbdb-record-getprop
                              (if (vectorp rec)
                                  rec
                                (car rec))
                              'mail-alias) "")
                         "[ \n\t,]+"))
               (when (null invert) rec)
             (when invert rec)))
         bbdb-records)))

;; Splitting this into two functions because of interactive calling.
(defun sacha/bbdb-filter-displayed-records-by-alias (query &optional any)
  "Display only records whose mail-aliases match QUERY.
If ANY is non-nil, match if any of the keywords in QUERY are
present.
See also `sacha/bbdb-omit-displayed-records-by-alias'."
  (interactive (list
                (let ((crm-separator " "))
                  (completing-read-multiple
                   "Mail aliases: "
                   (bbdb-get-mail-aliases)))
                current-prefix-arg))
  (when (stringp query)
    (setq query (split-string query "[ \n\t,]+")))
  (bbdb-display-records
   (sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias
    (or bbdb-records (bbdb-records))
    (if any
        'sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias-match-any
      'sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias-match-all)
    query)))

;; Splitting this into two functions because of interactive calling.
(defun sacha/bbdb-omit-displayed-records-by-alias (query &optional any)
  "Display only records whose mail-aliases do not match QUERY.
If ANY is non-nil, match if any of the keywords in QUERY are
present.

See also `sacha/bbdb-filter-displayed-records-by-alias'."
  (interactive (list
                (let ((crm-separator " "))
                  (completing-read-multiple
                   "Mail aliases: "
                   (bbdb-get-mail-aliases))
                  current-prefix-arg)))
  (when (stringp query)
    (setq query (split-string query "[ \n\t,]+")))
  (bbdb-display-records
   (sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias
    (or bbdb-records (bbdb-records))
    (if any
        'sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias-match-any
      'sacha/bbdb-filter-by-alias-match-all)
    query
    t)))

This will be part of my book, Wicked Cool Emacs. Looking forward to putting it together!

When I find myself in an airport, I sometimes take a little time to say hi to a bunch of people who are suddenly just a local call a way. Or sometimes I’m thinking of going somewhere, and instead of flipping through my phone’s address book, I’ll check my computer to see who might be interested.

You can use this function to filter phone numbers in your BBDB based on a regular expression. As usual, leaving the regular expression blank means that all records with phone numbers will be displayed. By default, the function works on the currently displayed records, allowing you to apply multiple filters. You can call it with a universal prefix argument (C-u M-x sacha/bbdb-find-people-with-phones) to match against all contacts in your database.

Here’s the code:

(defun sacha/bbdb-find-people-with-phones (&optional regexp records)
  "Search for phone numbers that match REGEXP in BBDB RECORDS.
Without a prefix argument, filter the list of displayed records.
Call with a prefix argument to search the entire database.  This
works best if you use a consistent format to store your phone
numbers.  The search will strip out non-numeric characters. For
example, +1-888-123-4567 will be treated as +18001234567.

To search for all numbers in Toronto, search for
\"+1\\(416\\|647\\)\". If you search for certain areas
frequently, it might be a good idea to define a function for
them."
  (interactive (list (read-string "Regexp: ")
		     (if current-prefix-arg
			 (bbdb-records)
		       (or bbdb-records (bbdb-records)))))
  (let (filtered next)
    (while records
      (when
          (and (bbdb-record-get-field-internal
		(if (arrayp (car records))
		    (car records)
		  (caar records)) 'phone)
               (or
                (null regexp)
		(string= regexp "")
                (delq nil
                      (mapcar
                       (lambda (phone)
			 (when (string-match regexp (sacha/bbdb-phone-string phone))
			   (concat (bbdb-phone-location phone) ": " (bbdb-phone-string phone))))
                       (bbdb-record-get-field-internal
                        (if (arrayp (car records))
                            (car records)
                          (caar records)) 'phone)))))
        (setq filtered (cons (if (arrayp (car records))
                                 (car records)
                               (caar records)) filtered)))
      (setq records (cdr records)))
    (bbdb-display-records (nreverse filtered))))

(defun sacha/bbdb-phone-string (&optional phone)
  "Strip non-numeric characters from PHONE, except for +."
  (replace-regexp-in-string "[^+1234567890]" "" (bbdb-phone-string phone)))
   
(defun sacha/bbdb-yank-phones ()
  "Copy a phone list into the kill ring."
  (interactive)
  (kill-new
   (mapconcat
    (lambda (record)
      (mapconcat
       (lambda (phone)
	 (concat (bbdb-record-name (car record)) "\t" 
                 (bbdb-phone-location phone) "\t"
		 (bbdb-phone-string phone)))
        (bbdb-record-get-field-internal (car record) 'phone)
        "\n"))
    bbdb-records
    "\n")))