kABPersonEmailProperty returns weird stuff - ios

Question

I am tring to get email address of ABRecordRef like this:
ABRecordRef ref = CFArrayGetValueAtIndex( allPeople, i );
NSString *email = [(NSString*) ABRecordCopyValue( ref, kABPersonEmailProperty ) autorelease];
NSLog(#"%#", email);
It returning this:
_$!<Home>!$_ (0x6840af0) - test#test.com (0x6840cc0)
What's this stuff around the email? and how can I get rid of it?Thanks.

Answer 1

kABPersonEmailProperty is of type kABMultiStringPropertyType. There is no single email address property, a person might have an email address for work, one for home, etc.
You can get an array of all email addresses by using ABMultiValueCopyArrayOfAllValues:
ABMultiValueRef emailMultiValue = ABRecordCopyValue(ref, kABPersonEmailProperty);
NSArray *emailAddresses = [(NSArray *)ABMultiValueCopyArrayOfAllValues(emailMultiValue) autorelease];
CFRelease(emailMultiValue);
To get the labels of the email addresses, use ABMultiValueCopyLabelAtIndex. "_$!<Home>!$" is a special constant that's defined as kABHomeLabel, there's also kABWorkLabel.

Answer 2

Basically more details for #omz answer. Here is the code I used that extracts home email and the name of the person:
- (BOOL)peoplePickerNavigationController:(ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *)peoplePicker shouldContinueAfterSelectingPerson:(ABRecordRef)person
{
ABMultiValueRef emails = ABRecordCopyValue(person, kABPersonEmailProperty);
for (CFIndex i = 0; i < ABMultiValueGetCount(emails); i++) {
NSString *label = (__bridge NSString *) ABMultiValueCopyLabelAtIndex(emails, i);
if ([label isEqualToString:(NSString *)kABHomeLabel]) {
NSString *email = (__bridge NSString *) ABMultiValueCopyValueAtIndex(emails, i);
_emailTextField.text = email;
}
}
CFRelease(emails);
NSString *first = (__bridge NSString *)ABRecordCopyValue(person, kABPersonFirstNameProperty);
NSString *last = (__bridge NSString *)ABRecordCopyValue(person, kABPersonLastNameProperty);
if (first && first.length > 0 && last && last.length > 0) {
_nicknameTextField.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%# %#", first, last];
} else if (first && first.length > 0) {
_nicknameTextField.text = first;
} else {
_nicknameTextField.text = last;
}
[self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
return NO;
}

Answer 3

Try out this......
ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *picker = [[ABPeoplePickerNavigationController alloc] init];
picker.peoplePickerDelegate = self;
// Display only a person's phone, email, and birthdate
NSArray *displayedItems = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
[NSNumber numberWithInt:kABPersonPhoneProperty],
[NSNumber numberWithInt:kABPersonEmailProperty],
[NSNumber numberWithInt:kABPersonBirthdayProperty], nil];
picker.displayedProperties = displayedItems;