iCalendar – Everything you need to know

Main website: https://icalendar.org/

Feed validator: https://icalendar.org/validator.html

iCal vs iCalendar

iCal is a commercial name for the Apple product calendar whereas iCalendar (internet calendar) is an open standard.

iCal file type

It comes with either of extensions “.ical” “.ics” “.ifb” or “.icalendar” with a MIME type of “text/calendar”.

Structure

Example structure:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ZContent.net//Zap Calendar 1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Abraham Lincoln
UID:c7614cff-3549-4a00-9152-d25cc1fe077d
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYMONTH=2;BYMONTHDAY=12
DTSTART:20080212
DTEND:20080213
DTSTAMP:20150421T141403
CATEGORIES:U.S. Presidents,Civil War People
LOCATION:Hodgenville\, Kentucky
GEO:37.5739497;-85.7399606
DESCRIPTION:Born February 12\, 1809\nSixteenth President (1861-1865)\n\n\n
 \nhttp://AmericanHistoryCalendar.com
URL:http://americanhistorycalendar.com/peoplecalendar/1,328-abraham-lincol
 n
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Starts with BEGIN: and ends with END:.

Can contain multiple “VEVENT” for events, “VTODO” for to-do items, “VJOURNAL” for journal entries, and “VTIMEZONE” for time zone information.

iCalendar vs CalDAV

Whereas iCalendar format holds information only for read-only purposes, CalDAV is built upon iCalendar format and therefore CalDAV allows also for managing event information, for example editing meta information or managing participants.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV
• https://icalendar.org/
• https://icalendar.org/RFC-Specifications/CalDAV-Access-RFC-4791/

Credits: