RFC 6350
vCard Format Specification
Pages: 74
Proposed Standard
→ Errata
Obsoletes: 2425 2426 4770
Updates: 2739
Updated by: 6868 9554 9555
Proposed Standard
→ Errata
Obsoletes: 2425 2426 4770
Updates: 2739
Updated by: 6868 9554 9555
Part 1 of 3 – Pages 1 to 22
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Perreault Request for Comments: 6350 Viagenie Obsoletes: 2425, 2426, 4770 August 2011 Updates: 2739 Category: Standards Track ISSN: 2070-1721 vCard Format SpecificationAbstract
This document defines the vCard data format for representing and exchanging a variety of information about individuals and other entities (e.g., formatted and structured name and delivery addresses, email address, multiple telephone numbers, photograph, logo, audio clips, etc.). This document obsoletes RFCs 2425, 2426, and 4770, and updates RFC 2739. Status of This Memo This is an Internet Standards Track document. This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6350. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.
This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions published or made publicly available before November 10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process. Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English.Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. vCard Format Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.1. Charset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.2. Line Delimiting and Folding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.3. ABNF Format Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.4. Property Value Escaping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4. Property Value Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.1. TEXT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2. URI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.3. DATE, TIME, DATE-TIME, DATE-AND-OR-TIME, and TIMESTAMP . . 12 4.3.1. DATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.3.2. TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.3.3. DATE-TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.3.4. DATE-AND-OR-TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4.3.5. TIMESTAMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4.4. BOOLEAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4.5. INTEGER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4.6. FLOAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4.7. UTC-OFFSET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4.8. LANGUAGE-TAG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5. Property Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.1. LANGUAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.2. VALUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.3. PREF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 5.4. ALTID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 5.5. PID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 5.6. TYPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 5.7. MEDIATYPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 5.8. CALSCALE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 5.9. SORT-AS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.10. GEO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 5.11. TZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6. vCard Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 6.1. General Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 6.1.1. BEGIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 6.1.2. END . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 6.1.3. SOURCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 6.1.4. KIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 6.1.5. XML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 6.2. Identification Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 6.2.1. FN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 6.2.2. N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 6.2.3. NICKNAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 6.2.4. PHOTO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 6.2.5. BDAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 6.2.6. ANNIVERSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 6.2.7. GENDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 6.3. Delivery Addressing Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 6.3.1. ADR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 6.4. Communications Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 6.4.1. TEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 6.4.2. EMAIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 6.4.3. IMPP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 6.4.4. LANG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 6.5. Geographical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 6.5.1. TZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 6.5.2. GEO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 6.6. Organizational Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 6.6.1. TITLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 6.6.2. ROLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 6.6.3. LOGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 6.6.4. ORG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 6.6.5. MEMBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 6.6.6. RELATED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 6.7. Explanatory Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 6.7.1. CATEGORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 6.7.2. NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 6.7.3. PRODID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 6.7.4. REV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 6.7.5. SOUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 6.7.6. UID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 6.7.7. CLIENTPIDMAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 6.7.8. URL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 6.7.9. VERSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 6.8. Security Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 6.8.1. KEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 6.9. Calendar Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 6.9.1. FBURL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 6.9.2. CALADRURI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 6.9.3. CALURI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
6.10. Extended Properties and Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7. Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.1. Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.1.1. Matching vCard Instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.1.2. Matching Property Instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.1.3. PID Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.2. Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.2.1. Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.2.2. Initial Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
7.2.3. Adding and Sharing a Property . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
7.2.4. Simultaneous Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
7.2.5. Global Context Simplification . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
8. Example: Author's vCard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
10.1. Media Type Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
10.2. Registering New vCard Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
10.2.1. Registration Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
10.2.2. Vendor Namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
10.2.3. Registration Template for Properties . . . . . . . . . 61
10.2.4. Registration Template for Parameters . . . . . . . . . 61
10.2.5. Registration Template for Value Data Types . . . . . . 62
10.2.6. Registration Template for Values . . . . . . . . . . . 62
10.3. Initial vCard Elements Registries . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
10.3.1. Properties Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
10.3.2. Parameters Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
10.3.3. Value Data Types Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
10.3.4. Values Registries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
11. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Appendix A. Differences from RFCs 2425 and 2426 . . . . . . . . . 73
A.1. New Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
A.2. Removed Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
A.3. New Properties and Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
1. Introduction
Electronic address books have become ubiquitous. Their increased presence on portable, connected devices as well as the diversity of platforms that exchange contact data call for a standard. This memo defines the vCard format, which allows the capture and exchange of information normally stored within an address book or directory application. A high-level overview of the differences from RFCs 2425 and 2426 can be found in Appendix A.2. Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].3. vCard Format Specification
The text/vcard MIME content type (hereafter known as "vCard"; see Section 10.1) contains contact information, typically pertaining to a single contact or group of contacts. The content consists of one or more lines in the format given below.3.1. Charset
The charset (see [RFC3536] for internationalization terminology) for vCard is UTF-8 as defined in [RFC3629]. There is no way to override this. It is invalid to specify a value other than "UTF-8" in the "charset" MIME parameter (see Section 10.1).3.2. Line Delimiting and Folding
Individual lines within vCard are delimited by the [RFC5322] line break, which is a CRLF sequence (U+000D followed by U+000A). Long logical lines of text can be split into a multiple-physical-line representation using the following folding technique. Content lines SHOULD be folded to a maximum width of 75 octets, excluding the line break. Multi-octet characters MUST remain contiguous. The rationale for this folding process can be found in [RFC5322], Section 2.1.1. A logical line MAY be continued on the next physical line anywhere between two characters by inserting a CRLF immediately followed by a single white space character (space (U+0020) or horizontal tab (U+0009)). The folded line MUST contain at least one character. Any sequence of CRLF followed immediately by a single white space
character is ignored (removed) when processing the content type. For
example, the line:
NOTE:This is a long description that exists on a long line.
can be represented as:
NOTE:This is a long description
that exists on a long line.
It could also be represented as:
NOTE:This is a long descrip
tion that exists o
n a long line.
The process of moving from this folded multiple-line representation
of a property definition to its single-line representation is called
unfolding. Unfolding is accomplished by regarding CRLF immediately
followed by a white space character (namely, HTAB (U+0009) or SPACE
(U+0020)) as equivalent to no characters at all (i.e., the CRLF and
single white space character are removed).
Note: It is possible for very simple implementations to generate
improperly folded lines in the middle of a UTF-8 multi-octet
sequence. For this reason, implementations SHOULD unfold lines in
such a way as to properly restore the original sequence.
Note: Unfolding is done differently than in [RFC5322]. Unfolding
in [RFC5322] only removes the CRLF, not the space following it.
Folding is done after any content encoding of a type value.
Unfolding is done before any decoding of a type value in a content
line.
3.3. ABNF Format Definition
The following ABNF uses the notation of [RFC5234], which also defines
CRLF, WSP, DQUOTE, VCHAR, ALPHA, and DIGIT.
vcard-entity = 1*vcard
vcard = "BEGIN:VCARD" CRLF
"VERSION:4.0" CRLF
1*contentline
"END:VCARD" CRLF
; A vCard object MUST include the VERSION and FN properties.
; VERSION MUST come immediately after BEGIN:VCARD.
contentline = [group "."] name *(";" param) ":" value CRLF
; When parsing a content line, folded lines must first
; be unfolded according to the unfolding procedure
; described in Section 3.2.
; When generating a content line, lines longer than 75
; characters SHOULD be folded according to the folding
; procedure described in Section 3.2.
group = 1*(ALPHA / DIGIT / "-")
name = "SOURCE" / "KIND" / "FN" / "N" / "NICKNAME"
/ "PHOTO" / "BDAY" / "ANNIVERSARY" / "GENDER" / "ADR" / "TEL"
/ "EMAIL" / "IMPP" / "LANG" / "TZ" / "GEO" / "TITLE" / "ROLE"
/ "LOGO" / "ORG" / "MEMBER" / "RELATED" / "CATEGORIES"
/ "NOTE" / "PRODID" / "REV" / "SOUND" / "UID" / "CLIENTPIDMAP"
/ "URL" / "KEY" / "FBURL" / "CALADRURI" / "CALURI" / "XML"
/ iana-token / x-name
; Parsing of the param and value is based on the "name" as
; defined in ABNF sections below.
; Group and name are case-insensitive.
iana-token = 1*(ALPHA / DIGIT / "-")
; identifier registered with IANA
x-name = "x-" 1*(ALPHA / DIGIT / "-")
; Names that begin with "x-" or "X-" are
; reserved for experimental use, not intended for released
; products, or for use in bilateral agreements.
param = language-param / value-param / pref-param / pid-param
/ type-param / geo-parameter / tz-parameter / sort-as-param
/ calscale-param / any-param
; Allowed parameters depend on property name.
param-value = *SAFE-CHAR / DQUOTE *QSAFE-CHAR DQUOTE
any-param = (iana-token / x-name) "=" param-value *("," param-value)
NON-ASCII = UTF8-2 / UTF8-3 / UTF8-4
; UTF8-{2,3,4} are defined in [RFC3629]
QSAFE-CHAR = WSP / "!" / %x23-7E / NON-ASCII
; Any character except CTLs, DQUOTE
SAFE-CHAR = WSP / "!" / %x23-39 / %x3C-7E / NON-ASCII
; Any character except CTLs, DQUOTE, ";", ":"
VALUE-CHAR = WSP / VCHAR / NON-ASCII
; Any textual character
A line that begins with a white space character is a continuation of the previous line, as described in Section 3.2. The white space character and immediately preceeding CRLF should be discarded when reconstructing the original line. Note that this line-folding convention differs from that found in [RFC5322], in that the sequence <CRLF><WSP> found anywhere in the content indicates a continued line and should be removed. Property names and parameter names are case-insensitive (e.g., the property name "fn" is the same as "FN" and "Fn"). Parameter values MAY be case-sensitive or case-insensitive, depending on their definition. Parameter values that are not explicitly defined as being case-sensitive are case-insensitive. Based on experience with vCard 3 interoperability, it is RECOMMENDED that property and parameter names be upper-case on output. The group construct is used to group related properties together. The group name is a syntactic convention used to indicate that all property names prefaced with the same group name SHOULD be grouped together when displayed by an application. It has no other significance. Implementations that do not understand or support grouping MAY simply strip off any text before a "." to the left of the type name and present the types and values as normal. Property cardinalities are indicated using the following notation, which is based on ABNF (see [RFC5234], Section 3.6): +-------------+--------------------------------------------------+ | Cardinality | Meaning | +-------------+--------------------------------------------------+ | 1 | Exactly one instance per vCard MUST be present. | | *1 | Exactly one instance per vCard MAY be present. | | 1* | One or more instances per vCard MUST be present. | | * | One or more instances per vCard MAY be present. | +-------------+--------------------------------------------------+ Properties defined in a vCard instance may have multiple values depending on the property cardinality. The general rule for encoding multi-valued properties is to simply create a new content line for each value (including the property name). However, it should be noted that some value types support encoding multiple values in a single content line by separating the values with a comma ",". This approach has been taken for several of the content types defined below (date, time, integer, float).
3.4. Property Value Escaping
Some properties may contain one or more values delimited by a COMMA character (U+002C). Therefore, a COMMA character in a value MUST be escaped with a BACKSLASH character (U+005C), even for properties that don't allow multiple instances (for consistency). Some properties (e.g., N and ADR) comprise multiple fields delimited by a SEMICOLON character (U+003B). Therefore, a SEMICOLON in a field of such a "compound" property MUST be escaped with a BACKSLASH character. SEMICOLON characters in non-compound properties MAY be escaped. On input, an escaped SEMICOLON character is never a field separator. An unescaped SEMICOLON character may be a field separator, depending on the property in which it appears. Furthermore, some fields of compound properties may contain a list of values delimited by a COMMA character. Therefore, a COMMA character in one of a field's values MUST be escaped with a BACKSLASH character, even for fields that don't allow multiple values (for consistency). Compound properties allowing multiple instances MUST NOT be encoded in a single content line. Finally, BACKSLASH characters in values MUST be escaped with a BACKSLASH character. NEWLINE (U+000A) characters in values MUST be encoded by two characters: a BACKSLASH followed by either an 'n' (U+006E) or an 'N' (U+004E). In all other cases, escaping MUST NOT be used.4. Property Value Data Types
Standard value types are defined below. value = text / text-list / date-list / time-list / date-time-list / date-and-or-time-list / timestamp-list / boolean / integer-list / float-list / URI ; from Section 3 of [RFC3986] / utc-offset / Language-Tag / iana-valuespec ; Actual value type depends on property name and VALUE parameter.
text = *TEXT-CHAR
TEXT-CHAR = "\\" / "\," / "\n" / WSP / NON-ASCII
/ %x21-2B / %x2D-5B / %x5D-7E
; Backslashes, commas, and newlines must be encoded.
component = "\\" / "\," / "\;" / "\n" / WSP / NON-ASCII
/ %x21-2B / %x2D-3A / %x3C-5B / %x5D-7E
list-component = component *("," component)
text-list = text *("," text)
date-list = date *("," date)
time-list = time *("," time)
date-time-list = date-time *("," date-time)
date-and-or-time-list = date-and-or-time *("," date-and-or-time)
timestamp-list = timestamp *("," timestamp)
integer-list = integer *("," integer)
float-list = float *("," float)
boolean = "TRUE" / "FALSE"
integer = [sign] 1*DIGIT
float = [sign] 1*DIGIT ["." 1*DIGIT]
sign = "+" / "-"
year = 4DIGIT ; 0000-9999
month = 2DIGIT ; 01-12
day = 2DIGIT ; 01-28/29/30/31 depending on month and leap year
hour = 2DIGIT ; 00-23
minute = 2DIGIT ; 00-59
second = 2DIGIT ; 00-58/59/60 depending on leap second
zone = utc-designator / utc-offset
utc-designator = %x5A ; uppercase "Z"
date = year [month day]
/ year "-" month
/ "--" month [day]
/ "--" "-" day
date-noreduc = year month day
/ "--" month day
/ "--" "-" day
date-complete = year month day
time = hour [minute [second]] [zone]
/ "-" minute [second] [zone]
/ "-" "-" second [zone]
time-notrunc = hour [minute [second]] [zone]
time-complete = hour minute second [zone]
time-designator = %x54 ; uppercase "T"
date-time = date-noreduc time-designator time-notrunc
timestamp = date-complete time-designator time-complete
date-and-or-time = date-time / date / time-designator time
utc-offset = sign hour [minute]
Language-Tag = <Language-Tag, defined in [RFC5646], Section 2.1>
iana-valuespec = <value-spec, see Section 12>
; a publicly defined valuetype format, registered
; with IANA, as defined in Section 12 of this
; document.
4.1. TEXT
"text": The "text" value type should be used to identify values that
contain human-readable text. As for the language, it is controlled
by the LANGUAGE property parameter defined in Section 5.1.
Examples for "text":
this is a text value
this is one value,this is another
this is a single value\, with a comma encoded
A formatted text line break in a text value type MUST be represented
as the character sequence backslash (U+005C) followed by a Latin
small letter n (U+006E) or a Latin capital letter N (U+004E), that
is, "\n" or "\N".
For example, a multiple line NOTE value of:
Mythical Manager
Hyjinx Software Division
BabsCo, Inc.
could be represented as:
NOTE:Mythical Manager\nHyjinx Software Division\n
BabsCo\, Inc.\n
demonstrating the \n literal formatted line break technique, the
CRLF-followed-by-space line folding technique, and the backslash
escape technique.
4.2. URI
"uri": The "uri" value type should be used to identify values that are referenced by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) instead of encoded in-line. These value references might be used if the value is too large, or otherwise undesirable to include directly. The format for the URI is as defined in Section 3 of [RFC3986]. Note that the value of a property of type "uri" is what the URI points to, not the URI itself. Examples for "uri": http://www.example.com/my/picture.jpg ldap://ldap.example.com/cn=babs%20jensen4.3. DATE, TIME, DATE-TIME, DATE-AND-OR-TIME, and TIMESTAMP
"date", "time", "date-time", "date-and-or-time", and "timestamp": Each of these value types is based on the definitions in [ISO.8601.2004]. Multiple such values can be specified using the comma-separated notation. Only the basic format is supported.4.3.1. DATE
A calendar date as specified in [ISO.8601.2004], Section 4.1.2. Reduced accuracy, as specified in [ISO.8601.2004], Sections 4.1.2.3 a) and b), but not c), is permitted. Expanded representation, as specified in [ISO.8601.2004], Section 4.1.4, is forbidden. Truncated representation, as specified in [ISO.8601.2000], Sections 5.2.1.3 d), e), and f), is permitted. Examples for "date": 19850412 1985-04 1985 --0412 ---12
Note the use of YYYY-MM in the second example above. YYYYMM is disallowed to prevent confusion with YYMMDD. Note also that YYYY-MM-DD is disallowed since we are using the basic format instead of the extended format.4.3.2. TIME
A time of day as specified in [ISO.8601.2004], Section 4.2. Reduced accuracy, as specified in [ISO.8601.2004], Section 4.2.2.3, is permitted. Representation with decimal fraction, as specified in [ISO.8601.2004], Section 4.2.2.4, is forbidden. The midnight hour is always represented by 00, never 24 (see [ISO.8601.2004], Section 4.2.3). Truncated representation, as specified in [ISO.8601.2000], Sections 5.3.1.4 a), b), and c), is permitted. Examples for "time": 102200 1022 10 -2200 --00 102200Z 102200-08004.3.3. DATE-TIME
A date and time of day combination as specified in [ISO.8601.2004], Section 4.3. Truncation of the date part, as specified in [ISO.8601.2000], Section 5.4.2 c), is permitted. Examples for "date-time": 19961022T140000 --1022T1400 ---22T14
4.3.4. DATE-AND-OR-TIME
Either a DATE-TIME, a DATE, or a TIME value. To allow unambiguous interpretation, a stand-alone TIME value is always preceded by a "T". Examples for "date-and-or-time": 19961022T140000 --1022T1400 ---22T14 19850412 1985-04 1985 --0412 ---12 T102200 T1022 T10 T-2200 T--00 T102200Z T102200-08004.3.5. TIMESTAMP
A complete date and time of day combination as specified in [ISO.8601.2004], Section 4.3.2. Examples for "timestamp": 19961022T140000 19961022T140000Z 19961022T140000-05 19961022T140000-05004.4. BOOLEAN
"boolean": The "boolean" value type is used to express boolean values. These values are case-insensitive. Examples: TRUE false True
4.5. INTEGER
"integer": The "integer" value type is used to express signed integers in decimal format. If sign is not specified, the value is assumed positive "+". Multiple "integer" values can be specified using the comma-separated notation. The maximum value is 9223372036854775807, and the minimum value is -9223372036854775808. These limits correspond to a signed 64-bit integer using two's- complement arithmetic. Examples: 1234567890 -1234556790 +1234556790,4321098764.6. FLOAT
"float": The "float" value type is used to express real numbers. If sign is not specified, the value is assumed positive "+". Multiple "float" values can be specified using the comma-separated notation. Implementations MUST support a precision equal or better than that of the IEEE "binary64" format [IEEE.754.2008]. Note: Scientific notation is disallowed. Implementers wishing to use their favorite language's %f formatting should be careful. Examples: 20.30 1000000.0000001 1.333,3.144.7. UTC-OFFSET
"utc-offset": The "utc-offset" value type specifies that the property value is a signed offset from UTC. This value type can be specified in the TZ property. The value type is an offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It is specified as a positive or negative difference in units of hours and minutes (e.g., +hhmm). The time is specified as a 24-hour clock. Hour values are from 00 to 23, and minute values are from 00 to 59. Hour and minutes are 2 digits with high-order zeroes required to maintain digit count. The basic format for ISO 8601 UTC offsets MUST be used.
4.8. LANGUAGE-TAG
"language-tag": A single language tag, as defined in [RFC5646].5. Property Parameters
A property can have attributes associated with it. These "property parameters" contain meta-information about the property or the property value. In some cases, the property parameter can be multi- valued in which case the property parameter value elements are separated by a COMMA (U+002C). Property parameter value elements that contain the COLON (U+003A), SEMICOLON (U+003B), or COMMA (U+002C) character separators MUST be specified as quoted-string text values. Property parameter values MUST NOT contain the DQUOTE (U+0022) character. The DQUOTE character is used as a delimiter for parameter values that contain restricted characters or URI text. Applications MUST ignore x-param and iana-param values they don't recognize.5.1. LANGUAGE
The LANGUAGE property parameter is used to identify data in multiple languages. There is no concept of "default" language, except as specified by any "Content-Language" MIME header parameter that is present [RFC3282]. The value of the LANGUAGE property parameter is a language tag as defined in Section 2 of [RFC5646]. Examples: ROLE;LANGUAGE=tr:hoca ABNF: language-param = "LANGUAGE=" Language-Tag ; Language-Tag is defined in section 2.1 of RFC 56465.2. VALUE
The VALUE parameter is OPTIONAL, used to identify the value type (data type) and format of the value. The use of these predefined formats is encouraged even if the value parameter is not explicitly used. By defining a standard set of value types and their formats, existing parsing and processing code can be leveraged. The
predefined data type values MUST NOT be repeated in COMMA-separated
value lists except within the N, NICKNAME, ADR, and CATEGORIES
properties.
ABNF:
value-param = "VALUE=" value-type
value-type = "text"
/ "uri"
/ "date"
/ "time"
/ "date-time"
/ "date-and-or-time"
/ "timestamp"
/ "boolean"
/ "integer"
/ "float"
/ "utc-offset"
/ "language-tag"
/ iana-token ; registered as described in section 12
/ x-name
5.3. PREF
The PREF parameter is OPTIONAL and is used to indicate that the
corresponding instance of a property is preferred by the vCard
author. Its value MUST be an integer between 1 and 100 that
quantifies the level of preference. Lower values correspond to a
higher level of preference, with 1 being most preferred.
When the parameter is absent, the default MUST be to interpret the
property instance as being least preferred.
Note that the value of this parameter is to be interpreted only in
relation to values assigned to other instances of the same property
in the same vCard. A given value, or the absence of a value, MUST
NOT be interpreted on its own.
This parameter MAY be applied to any property that allows multiple
instances.
ABNF:
pref-param = "PREF=" (1*2DIGIT / "100")
; An integer between 1 and 100.
5.4. ALTID
The ALTID parameter is used to "tag" property instances as being alternative representations of the same logical property. For example, translations of a property in multiple languages generates multiple property instances having different LANGUAGE (Section 5.1) parameter that are tagged with the same ALTID value. This parameter's value is treated as an opaque string. Its sole purpose is to be compared for equality against other ALTID parameter values. Two property instances are considered alternative representations of the same logical property if and only if their names as well as the value of their ALTID parameters are identical. Property instances without the ALTID parameter MUST NOT be considered an alternative representation of any other property instance. Values for the ALTID parameter are not globally unique: they MAY be reused for different property names. Property instances having the same ALTID parameter value count as 1 toward cardinality. Therefore, since N (Section 6.2.2) has cardinality *1 and TITLE (Section 6.6.1) has cardinality *, these three examples would be legal: N;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=jp:<U+5C71><U+7530>;<U+592A><U+90CE>;;; N;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=en:Yamada;Taro;;; (<U+XXXX> denotes a UTF8-encoded Unicode character.) TITLE;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=fr:Patron TITLE;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=en:Boss TITLE;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=fr:Patron TITLE;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=en:Boss TITLE;ALTID=2;LANGUAGE=en:Chief vCard Evangelist while this one would not: N;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=jp:<U+5C71><U+7530>;<U+592A><U+90CE>;;; N:Yamada;Taro;;; (Two instances of the N property.) and these three would be legal but questionable: TITLE;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=fr:Patron TITLE;ALTID=2;LANGUAGE=en:Boss (Should probably have the same ALTID value.)
TITLE;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=fr:Patron
TITLE:LANGUAGE=en:Boss
(Second line should probably have ALTID=1.)
N;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=jp:<U+5C71><U+7530>;<U+592A><U+90CE>;;;
N;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=en:Yamada;Taro;;;
N;ALTID=1;LANGUAGE=en:Smith;John;;;
(The last line should probably have ALTID=2. But that would be
illegal because N has cardinality *1.)
The ALTID property MAY also be used in may contexts other than with
the LANGUAGE parameter. Here's an example with two representations
of the same photo in different file formats:
PHOTO;ALTID=1:data:image/jpeg;base64,...
PHOTO;ALTID=1;data:image/jp2;base64,...
ABNF:
altid-param = "ALTID=" param-value
5.5. PID
The PID parameter is used to identify a specific property among
multiple instances. It plays a role analogous to the UID property
(Section 6.7.6) on a per-property instead of per-vCard basis. It MAY
appear more than once in a given property. It MUST NOT appear on
properties that may have only one instance per vCard. Its value is
either a single small positive integer or a pair of small positive
integers separated by a dot. Multiple values may be encoded in a
single PID parameter by separating the values with a comma ",". See
Section 7 for more details on its usage.
ABNF:
pid-param = "PID=" pid-value *("," pid-value)
pid-value = 1*DIGIT ["." 1*DIGIT]
5.6. TYPE
The TYPE parameter has multiple, different uses. In general, it is a
way of specifying class characteristics of the associated property.
Most of the time, its value is a comma-separated subset of a
predefined enumeration. In this document, the following properties
make use of this parameter: FN, NICKNAME, PHOTO, ADR, TEL, EMAIL,
IMPP, LANG, TZ, GEO, TITLE, ROLE, LOGO, ORG, RELATED, CATEGORIES,
NOTE, SOUND, URL, KEY, FBURL, CALADRURI, and CALURI. The TYPE
parameter MUST NOT be applied on other properties defined in this
document.
The "work" and "home" values act like tags. The "work" value implies
that the property is related to an individual's work place, while the
"home" value implies that the property is related to an individual's
personal life. When neither "work" nor "home" is present, it is
implied that the property is related to both an individual's work
place and personal life in the case that the KIND property's value is
"individual", or to none in other cases.
ABNF:
type-param = "TYPE=" type-value *("," type-value)
type-value = "work" / "home" / type-param-tel
/ type-param-related / iana-token / x-name
; This is further defined in individual property sections.
5.7. MEDIATYPE
The MEDIATYPE parameter is used with properties whose value is a URI.
Its use is OPTIONAL. It provides a hint to the vCard consumer
application about the media type [RFC2046] of the resource identified
by the URI. Some URI schemes do not need this parameter. For
example, the "data" scheme allows the media type to be explicitly
indicated as part of the URI [RFC2397]. Another scheme, "http",
provides the media type as part of the URI resolution process, with
the Content-Type HTTP header [RFC2616]. The MEDIATYPE parameter is
intended to be used with URI schemes that do not provide such
functionality (e.g., "ftp" [RFC1738]).
ABNF:
mediatype-param = "MEDIATYPE=" mediatype
mediatype = type-name "/" subtype-name *( ";" attribute "=" value )
; "attribute" and "value" are from [RFC2045]
; "type-name" and "subtype-name" are from [RFC4288]
5.8. CALSCALE
The CALSCALE parameter is identical to the CALSCALE property in
iCalendar (see [RFC5545], Section 3.7.1). It is used to define the
calendar system in which a date or date-time value is expressed. The
only value specified by iCalendar is "gregorian", which stands for
the Gregorian system. It is the default when the parameter is
absent. Additional values may be defined in extension documents and
registered with IANA (see Section 10.3.4). A vCard implementation MUST ignore properties with a CALSCALE parameter value that it does not understand. ABNF: calscale-param = "CALSCALE=" calscale-value calscale-value = "gregorian" / iana-token / x-name5.9. SORT-AS
The "sort-as" parameter is used to specify the string to be used for national-language-specific sorting. Without this information, sorting algorithms could incorrectly sort this vCard within a sequence of sorted vCards. When this property is present in a vCard, then the given strings are used for sorting the vCard. This parameter's value is a comma-separated list that MUST have as many or fewer elements as the corresponding property value has components. This parameter's value is case-sensitive. ABNF: sort-as-param = "SORT-AS=" sort-as-value sort-as-value = param-value *("," param-value) Examples: For the case of surname and given name sorting, the following examples define common sort string usage with the N property. FN:Rene van der Harten N;SORT-AS="Harten,Rene":van der Harten;Rene,J.;Sir;R.D.O.N. FN:Robert Pau Shou Chang N;SORT-AS="Pau Shou Chang,Robert":Shou Chang;Robert,Pau;; FN:Osamu Koura N;SORT-AS="Koura,Osamu":Koura;Osamu;; FN:Oscar del Pozo N;SORT-AS="Pozo,Oscar":del Pozo Triscon;Oscar;; FN:Chistine d'Aboville N;SORT-AS="Aboville,Christine":d'Aboville;Christine;;
FN:H. James de Mann
N;SORT-AS="Mann,James":de Mann;Henry,James;;
If sorted by surname, the results would be:
Christine d'Aboville
Rene van der Harten
Osamu Koura
H. James de Mann
Robert Pau Shou Chang
Oscar del Pozo
If sorted by given name, the results would be:
Christine d'Aboville
H. James de Mann
Osamu Koura
Oscar del Pozo
Rene van der Harten
Robert Pau Shou Chang
5.10. GEO
The GEO parameter can be used to indicate global positioning
information that is specific to an address. Its value is the same as
that of the GEO property (see Section 6.5.2).
ABNF:
geo-parameter = "GEO=" DQUOTE URI DQUOTE
5.11. TZ
The TZ parameter can be used to indicate time zone information that
is specific to an address. Its value is the same as that of the TZ
property.
ABNF:
tz-parameter = "TZ=" (param-value / DQUOTE URI DQUOTE)
(next page on part 2)