## 2.3.1 IC Objects

`IC` objects have a mapping interface, hence to obtain the mail address you simply get `ic['MailAddress']`. Assignment also works, and changes the option in the configuration file.

The module knows about various datatypes, and converts the internal IC representation to a ``logical'' Python data structure. Running the `ic` module standalone will run a test program that lists all keys and values in your IC database, this will have to serve as documentation.

If the module does not know how to represent the data it returns an instance of the `ICOpaqueData` type, with the raw data in its `data` attribute. Objects of this type are also acceptable values for assignment.

Besides the dictionary interface, `IC` objects have the following methods:

`launchurl`( | url[, hint])

  Parse the given URL, launch the correct application and pass it the URL. The optional hint can be a scheme name such as `'mailto:'`, in which case incomplete URLs are completed with this scheme. If hint is not provided, incomplete URLs are invalid.

`parseurl`( | data[, start[, end[, hint]]])

  Find an URL somewhere in data and return start position, end position and the URL. The optional start and end can be used to limit the search, so for instance if a user clicks in a long text field you can pass the whole text field and the click-position in start and this routine will return the whole URL in which the user clicked. As above, hint is an optional scheme used to complete incomplete URLs.

`mapfile`( | file)

  Return the mapping entry for the given file, which can be passed as either a filename or an `FSSpec()` result, and which need not exist.

  The mapping entry is returned as a tuple `(version, type, creator, postcreator, flags, extension, appname, postappname, mimetype, entryname)`, where version is the entry version number, type is the 4-character filetype, creator is the 4-character creator type, postcreator is the 4-character creator code of an optional application to post-process the file after downloading, flags are various bits specifying whether to transfer in binary or ascii and such, extension is the filename extension for this file type, appname is the printable name of the application to which this file belongs, postappname is the name of the postprocessing application, mimetype is the MIME type of this file and entryname is the name of this entry.

`maptypecreator`( | type, creator[, filename])

  Return the mapping entry for files with given 4-character type and creator codes. The optional filename may be specified to further help finding the correct entry (if the creator code is `'????'`, for instance).

  The mapping entry is returned in the same format as for mapfile.

`settypecreator`( | file)

  Given an existing file, specified either as a filename or as an `FSSpec()` result, set its creator and type correctly based on its extension. The finder is told about the change, so the finder icon will be updated quickly.