java - How to get contacts in order of their upcoming birthdays?

Question

I have code to read contact details and to read birthdays. But how do I get a list of contacts in order of their upcoming birthday?

For a single contact identified by id, I get details and birthday like this:

Cursor c = null;
  try {
   Uri uri = ContentUris.withAppendedId(
     ContactsContract.Contacts.CONTENT_URI, id);
   c = ctx.getContentResolver().query(uri, null, null, null, null);
   if (c != null) {
    if (c.moveToFirst()) {
     DatabaseUtils.cursorRowToContentValues(c, data);
    }

   }
   c.close();

   // read birthday
   c = ctx.getContentResolver()
     .query(
       Data.CONTENT_URI,
       new String[] { Event.DATA },
       Data.CONTACT_ID + "=" + id + " AND "
         + Data.MIMETYPE + "= '"
         + Event.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE + "' AND "
         + Event.TYPE + "=" + Event.TYPE_BIRTHDAY,
       null, Data.DISPLAY_NAME);
   if (c != null) {
    try {
     if (c.moveToFirst()) {
      this.setBirthday(c.getString(0));
     }
    } finally {
     c.close();
    }
   }

   return super.load(id);
  } catch (Exception e) {
   Log.v(TAG(), e.getMessage(), e);
   e.printStackTrace();
   return false;
  } finally {
   if (c != null)
    c.close();
  }

and the code to read all contacts is:

public Cursor getList() {
        // Get the base URI for the People table in the Contacts content
        // provider.
        Uri contacts = ContactsContract.Contacts.CONTENT_URI;
        // Make the query.
        ContentResolver cr = ctx.getContentResolver();
        // Form an array specifying which columns to return.
        String[] projection = new String[] { ContactsContract.Contacts._ID,
                ContactsContract.Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME };

        Cursor managedCursor = cr.query(contacts, projection, null, null,
                ContactsContract.Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME
                        + " COLLATE LOCALIZED ASC");
        return managedCursor;
    }

Answer 1

I think I'd get the list sorted by birthday, then copy that list into a second list, using today's date as the "zero date." Seems like it would be cleaner to do it that way than to try to hammer out an appropriate query, although it might be a touch slower.