Internet-Draft | JSCalendar | October 2020 |
Jenkins & Stepanek | Expires 19 April 2021 | [Page] |
This specification defines a data model and JSON representation of calendar data that can be used for storage and data exchange in a calendaring and scheduling environment. It aims to be an alternative and, over time, successor to the widely deployed iCalendar data format, and to be unambiguous, extendable, and simple to process. In contrast to the jCal format, which is also JSON-based, JSCalendar is not a direct mapping from iCalendar, but defines the data model independently and expands semantics where appropriate.¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."¶
This Internet-Draft will expire on 19 April 2021.¶
Copyright (c) 2020 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 (https://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 Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶
The authors would like to thank the members of CalConnect for their valuable contributions. This specification originated from the work of the API technical committee of CalConnect, the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium.¶
This document defines a data model for calendar event and task objects, or groups of such objects, in electronic calendar applications and systems. The format aims to be unambiguous, extendable and simple to process.¶
The key design considerations for this data model are as follows:¶
The representation of this data model is defined in the I-JSON format [RFC7493], which is a strict subset of the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format [RFC8259]. Using JSON is mostly a pragmatic choice: its widespread use makes JSCalendar easier to adopt, and the ready availability of production-ready JSON implementations eliminates a whole category of parser-related interoperability issues, which iCalendar has often suffered from.¶
The iCalendar data format [RFC5545], a widely deployed interchange format for calendaring and scheduling data, has served calendaring vendors for a long while, but contains some ambiguities and pitfalls that can not be overcome without backward-incompatible changes.¶
Sources of implementation errors include the following:¶
In recent years, many new products and services have appeared that wish to use a JSON representation of calendar data within their APIs. The JSON format for iCalendar data, jCal [RFC7265], is a direct mapping between iCalendar and JSON. In its effort to represent full iCalendar semantics, it inherits all the same pitfalls and uses a complicated JSON structure.¶
As a consequence, since the standardization of jCal, the majority of implementations and service providers either kept using iCalendar, or came up with their own proprietary JSON representations, which are incompatible with each other and often suffer from common pitfalls, such as storing event start times in UTC (which become incorrect if the timezone's rules change in the future). JSCalendar meets the demand for JSON-formatted calendar data that is free of such known problems and provides a standard representation as an alternative to the proprietary formats.¶
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 BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
The underlying format used for this specification is JSON. Consequently, the terms "object" and "array" as well as the four primitive types (strings, numbers, booleans, and null) are to be interpreted as described in Section 1 of [RFC8259].¶
Some examples in this document contain "partial" JSON documents used for illustrative purposes. In these examples, an ellipsis "..." is used to indicate a portion of the document that has been removed for compactness.¶
Type signatures are given for all JSON values in this document. The following conventions are used:¶
*
- The type is undefined (the value could be any type, although permitted values may be constrained by the context of this value).¶
String
- The JSON string type.¶
Number
- The JSON number type.¶
Boolean
- The JSON boolean type.¶
A[B]
- A JSON object where the keys are all of type A
, and the values are all of type B
.¶
A[]
- An array of values of type A
.¶
A|B
- The value is either of type A
or of type B
.¶
Other types may also be given, with their representations defined elsewhere in this document.¶
In addition to the standard JSON data types, the following data types are used in this specification:¶
Where Id
is given as a data type, it means a String
of at least 1 and a maximum of 255 octets in size, and it MUST only contain characters from the "URL and Filename Safe" base64url alphabet, as defined in Section 5 of [RFC4648], excluding the pad character ( =
). This means the allowed characters are the ASCII alphanumeric characters ( A-Za-z0-9
), hyphen (-
), and underscore (_
).¶
In many places in JSCalendar a JSON map is used where the map keys are of type Id and the map values are all the same type of object. This construction represents an unordered set of objects, with the added advantage that each entry has a name (the corresponding map key). This allows for more concise patching of objects, and, when applicable, for the objects in question to be referenced from other objects within the JSCalendar object.¶
Unless otherwise specified for a particular property, there are no uniqueness constraints on an Id value (other than, of course, the requirement that you cannot have two values with the same key within a single JSON map). For example, two Event objects might use the same Ids in their respective links
properties. Or within the same Event object the same Id could appear in the participants
and alerts
properties. These situations do not imply any semantic connections among the objects.¶
Where Int
is given as a data type, it means an integer in the range -2^53+1 "⇐" (LEFTWARDS DOUBLE ARROW, U+21D0) value "⇐" (LEFTWARDS DOUBLE ARROW, U+21D0) 2^53-1, the safe range for integers stored in a floating-point double, represented as a JSON Number
.¶
Where UnsignedInt
is given as a data type, it means an integer in the range 0 "⇐" (LEFTWARDS DOUBLE ARROW, U+21D0) value "⇐" (LEFTWARDS DOUBLE ARROW, U+21D0) 2^53-1, represented as a JSON Number
.¶
This is a string in [RFC3339] date-time
format, with the further restrictions that any letters MUST be in uppercase, and the time offset MUST be the character Z
. Fractional second values MUST NOT be included unless non-zero and MUST NOT have trailing zeros, to ensure there is only a single representation for each date-time.¶
For example 2010-10-10T10:10:10.003Z
is conformant, but 2010-10-10T10:10:10.000Z
is invalid and is correctly encoded as 2010-10-10T10:10:10Z
.¶
This is a date-time string with no time zone/offset information. It is otherwise in the same format as UTCDateTime, including fractional seconds. For example 2006-01-02T15:04:05
and 2006-01-02T15:04:05.003
are both valid. The time zone to associate with the LocalDateTime comes from the timeZone
property of the JSCalendar object (see Section 5.8.1). If no time zone is specified, the LocalDateTime is floating
. Floating date-times are not tied to any specific time zone. Instead, they occur in each time zone at the given wall-clock time (as opposed to the same instant point in time).¶
A time zone may have a period of discontinuity, for example a change from standard time to daylight-savings time. When converting local date-times that fall in the discontinuity to UTC, the offset before the transition MUST be used.¶
For example, in the America/Los_Angeles time zone, the date-time 2020-11-01T01:30:00 occurs twice: before the DST transition with a UTC offset of -07:00, and again after the transition with an offset of -08:00. When converting to UTC, we therefore use the offset before the transition (-07:00) and so it becomes 2020-11-01T08:30:00Z.¶
Similarly, in the Australia/Melbourne time zone, the date-time 2020-10-04T02:30:00 does not exist: the clocks are moved forward one hour for DST on that day at 02:00. However, such a value may appear during calculations (see duration semantics in Section 2.4.6), or due to a change in time zone rules (so it was valid when the event was first created). Again, it is interpreted as though the offset before the transition is in effect (+10:00), therefore when converted to UTC we get 2020-10-03T16:30:00Z.¶
Where Duration is given as a type, it means a length of time represented by a subset of [ISO8601] duration format, as specified by the following ABNF [RFC5234]:¶
dur-secfrac = "." 1*DIGIT dur-second = 1*DIGIT [dur-secfrac] "S" dur-minute = 1*DIGIT "M" [dur-second] dur-hour = 1*DIGIT "H" [dur-minute] dur-time = "T" (dur-hour / dur-minute / dur-second) dur-day = 1*DIGIT "D" dur-week = 1*DIGIT "W" dur-cal = (dur-week [dur-day] / dur-day) duration = "P" (dur-cal [dur-time] / dur-time)¶
In addition, the duration MUST NOT include fractional second values unless the fraction is non-zero. Fractional second values MUST NOT have trailing zeros, to ensure there is only a single representation for each duration.¶
A duration specifies an abstract number of weeks, days, hours, minutes, and/or seconds. A duration specified using weeks or days does not always correspond to an exact multiple of 24 hours. The number of hours/minutes/seconds may vary if it overlaps a period of discontinuity in the event's time zone, for example a change from standard time to daylight-savings time. Leap seconds MUST NOT be considered when adding or subtracting a duration to/from a LocalDateTime.¶
To add a duration to a LocalDateTime:¶
To subtract a duration from a LocalDateTime, the steps apply in reverse:¶
These semantics match the iCalendar DURATION value type ( Section 3.3.6 of [RFC5545]).¶
A SignedDuration represents a length of time that may be positive or negative and is typically used to express the offset of a point in time relative to an associated time. It is represented as a Duration, optionally preceded by a sign character. It is specified by the following ABNF:¶
signed-duration = ["+" / "-"] duration¶
A negative sign indicates a point in time at or before the associated time, a positive or no sign a time at or after the associated time.¶
Where TimeZoneId
is given as a data type, it means a String
that is either a time zone name in the IANA Time Zone Database [TZDB] or a custom time zone identifier defined in the timeZones
property (see Section 5.8.2).¶
Where an IANA time zone is specified, the zone rules of the respective zone records apply. Custom time zones are interpreted as described in Section 5.8.2.¶
A PatchObject is of type String[*]
, and represents an unordered set of patches on a JSON object. Each key is a path represented in a subset of JSON pointer format [RFC6901]. The paths have an implicit leading /
, so each key is prefixed with /
before applying the JSON pointer evaluation algorithm.¶
A patch within a PatchObject is only valid if all of the following conditions apply:¶
alerts/1/offset
and alerts
.¶
The value associated with each pointer determines how to apply that patch:¶
A PatchObject does not define its own @type
property (see Section 5.1.1). A @type
property in a patch MUST be handled as any other patched property value.¶
Implementations MUST reject in its entirety a PatchObject if any of its patches is invalid. Implementations MUST NOT apply partial patches.¶
The PatchObject format is used to significantly reduce file size and duplicated content when specifying variations to a common object, such as with recurring events or when translating the data into multiple languages. It can also better preserve semantic intent if only the properties that should differ between the two objects are patched. For example, if one person is not going to a particular instance of a regularly scheduled event, in iCalendar you would have to duplicate the entire event in the override. In JSCalendar this is a small patch to show the difference. As only this property is patched, if the location of the event is changed, the occurrence will automatically still inherit this.¶
A Relation object defines the relation to other objects, using a possibly empty set of relation types. The object that defines this relation is the linking object, while the other object is the linked object. A Relation object has the following properties:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be Relation
.¶
relation: String[Boolean]
(optional, default: empty Object)¶
Describes how the linked object is related to the linking object. The relation is defined as a set of relation types. If empty, the relationship between the two objects is unspecified.¶
Keys in the set MUST be one of the following values, or specified in the property definition where the Relation object is used, or a value registered in the IANA JSCalendar Enum Values registry, or a vendor-specific value (see Section 4.3):¶
first
: The linked object is the first in a series the linking object is part of.¶
next
: The linked object is the next in a series the linking object is part of.¶
child
: The linked object is a subpart of the linking object.¶
parent
: The linking object is a subpart of the linked object.¶
The value for each key in the map MUST be true.¶
A Link object represents an external resource associated with the linking object. It has the following properties:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be Link
.¶
href: String
(mandatory)¶
cid: String
(optional)¶
contentType: String
(optional)¶
size: UnsignedInt
(optional)¶
The size, in octets, of the resource when fully decoded (i.e., the number of octets in the file the user would download), if known. Note that this is an informational estimate, and implementations must be prepared to handle the actual size being quite different when the resource is fetched.¶
rel: String
(optional)¶
display: String
(optional)¶
Describes the intended purpose of a link to an image. If set, the rel
property MUST be set to icon
. The value MUST be one of the following values, another value registered in the IANA JSCalendar Enum Values registry, or a vendor-specific value (see Section 4.3):¶
title: String
(optional)¶
A human-readable plain-text description of the resource.¶
This section describes the calendar object types specified by JSCalendar.¶
Media type: application/jscalendar+json;type=jsevent
¶
A Event represents a scheduled amount of time on a calendar, typically a meeting, appointment, reminder or anniversary. It is required to start at a certain point in time and typically has a non-zero duration. Multiple participants may partake in the event at multiple locations.¶
The @type Section 5.1.1 property value MUST be Event
.¶
Media type: application/jscalendar+json;type=jstask
¶
A Task represents an action-item, assignment, to-do or work item. It may start and be due at certain points in time, may take some estimated time to complete, and may recur, none of which is required.¶
The @type Section 5.1.1 property value MUST be Task
.¶
Media type: application/jscalendar+json;type=jsgroup
¶
A Group is a collection of Event Section 3.1 and/or Task Section 3.2 objects. Typically, objects are grouped by topic (e.g., by keywords) or calendar membership.¶
The @type Section 5.1.1 property value MUST be Group
.¶
A JSCalendar object is a JSON object [RFC8259], which MUST be valid I-JSON (a stricter subset of JSON) [RFC7493]. Property names and values are case-sensitive.¶
The object has a collection of properties, as specified in the following sections. Properties are specified as being either mandatory or optional. Optional properties may have a default value, if explicitly specified in the property definition.¶
JSCalendar objects MUST name their type in the @type
property, if not explicitly specified otherwise for the respective object type. A notable exception to this rule is the PatchObject Section 2.4.9.¶
JSCalendar aims to provide unambiguous definitions for value types and properties, but does not define a general normalization or equivalence method for JSCalendar objects and types. This is because the notion of equivalence might range from byte-level equivalence to semantic equivalence, depending on the respective use case.¶
Normalization of JSCalendar objects is hindered because of the following reasons:¶
Considering this, the definition of equivalence and normalization is left to client and server implementations and to be negotiated by a calendar exchange protocol or defined elsewhere.¶
Vendors MAY add additional properties to the calendar object to support their custom features. To avoid conflict, the names of these properties MUST be prefixed by a domain name controlled by the vendor followed by a colon, e.g., example.com:customprop
. If the value is a new JSCalendar object, it either MUST include a @type
property or it MUST explicitly be specified to not require a type designator. The type name MUST be prefixed with a domain name controlled by the vendor.¶
Some JSCalendar properties allow vendor-specific value extensions. Such vendor-specific values MUST be prefixed by a domain name controlled by the vendor followed by a colon, e.g., example.com:customrel
.¶
Vendors are strongly encouraged to register any new property values or extensions that are useful to other systems as well, rather than use a vendor-specific prefix.¶
This section describes the properties that are common to the various JSCalendar object types. Specific JSCalendar object types may only support a subset of these properties. The object type definitions in Section 6 describe the set of supported properties per type.¶
Type: String
(mandatory).¶
Specifies the type this object represents. The allowed value differs by object type and is defined in sections Section 3.1, Section 3.2, and Section 3.3¶
Type: String
(mandatory).¶
A globally unique identifier, used to associate the object as the same across different systems, calendars and views. The value of this property MUST be unique across all JSCalendar objects, even if they are of different type. [RFC4122] describes a range of established algorithms to generate universally unique identifiers (UUID). UUID version 4, described in Section 4.4 of [RFC4122], is RECOMMENDED.¶
Type: String
(optional).¶
The identifier for the product that last updated the JSCalendar object. This should be set whenever the data in the object is modified (i.e., whenever the "updated" property is set).¶
The vendor of the implementation MUST ensure that this is a globally unique identifier, using some technique such as an FPI value, as defined in ISO.9070.1991.¶
This property SHOULD NOT be used to alter the interpretation of a JSCalendar object beyond the semantics specified in this document. For example, it is not to be used to further the understanding of non-standard properties, a practice that is known to cause long-term interoperability problems.¶
Type: UTCDateTime
(mandatory).¶
The date and time the data in this object was last modified (or its creation date/time if not modified since).¶
Type: UnsignedInt
(optional, default: 0).¶
Initially zero, this MUST be incremented by one every time a change is made to the object, except if the change only modifies the participants
property (see Section 5.5.5).¶
Type: String
(optional, default: empty String).¶
A longer-form text description of the object. The content is formatted according to the descriptionContentType
property.¶
Type: String
(optional, default: text/plain
).¶
Describes the media type [RFC6838] of the contents of the description
property. Media types MUST be sub-types of type text
, and SHOULD be text/plain
or text/html
[MEDIATYPES]. They MAY include parameters and the charset
parameter value MUST be utf-8
, if specified. Descriptions of type text/html
MAY contain cid
URLs [RFC2392] to reference links in the calendar object by use of the cid
property of the Link object.¶
Type: Boolean
(optional, default: false).¶
Indicates that the time is not important to display to the user when rendering this calendar object. An example of this is an event that conceptually occurs all day or across multiple days, such as "New Year's Day" or "Italy Vacation". While the time component is important for free-busy calculations and checking for scheduling clashes, calendars may choose to omit displaying it and/or display the object separately to other objects to enhance the user's view of their schedule.¶
Such events are also commonly known as "all-day" events.¶
Type: Id[Location]
(optional).¶
A map of location ids to Location objects, representing locations associated with the object.¶
A Location object has the following properties. It MUST have at least one property other than the relativeTo
property.¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be Location
.¶
name: String
(optional)¶
The human-readable name of the location.¶
description: String
(optional)¶
Human-readable, plain-text instructions for accessing this location. This may be an address, set of directions, door access code, etc.¶
locationTypes: String[Boolean]
(optional)¶
A set of one or more location types that describe this location. All types MUST be from the Location Types Registry [LOCATIONTYPES] as defined in [RFC4589]. The set is represented as a map, with the keys being the location types. The value for each key in the map MUST be true.¶
relativeTo: String
(optional)¶
Specifies the relation between this location and the time of the JSCalendar object. This is primarily to allow events representing travel to specify the location of departure (at the start of the event) and location of arrival (at the end); this is particularly important if these locations are in different time zones, as a client may wish to highlight this information for the user.¶
This MUST be one of the following values, another value registered in the IANA JSCalendar Enum Values registry, or a vendor-specific value (see Section 4.3). Any value the client or server doesn't understand should be treated the same as if this property is omitted.¶
timeZone: TimeZoneId
(optional)¶
A time zone for this location.¶
coordinates: String
(optional)¶
links: Id[Link]
(optional)¶
A map of link ids to Link objects, representing external resources associated with this location, for example a vCard or image. If there are no links, this MUST be omitted (rather than specified as an empty set).¶
Type: Id[VirtualLocation]
(optional).¶
A map of virtual location ids to VirtualLocation objects, representing virtual locations, such as video conferences or chat rooms, associated with the object.¶
A VirtualLocation object has the following properties.¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be VirtualLocation
.¶
name: String
(optional, default: empty String)¶
The human-readable name of the virtual location.¶
description: String
(optional)¶
Human-readable plain-text instructions for accessing this virtual location. This may be a conference access code, etc.¶
uri: String
(mandatory)¶
This may be a telephone number (represented using the tel:
scheme, e.g., tel:+1-555-555-5555
) for a teleconference, a web address for online chat, or any custom URI.¶
features: String[Boolean]
(optional)¶
A set of features supported by this virtual location. The set is represented as a map, with the keys being the feature. The value for each key in the map MUST be true.¶
The feature MUST be one of the following values, another value registered in the IANA JSCalendar Enum Values registry, or a vendor-specific value (see Section 4.3). Any value the client or server doesn't understand should be treated the same as if this feature is omitted.¶
Type: Id[Link]
(optional).¶
A map of link ids to Link objects, representing external resources associated with the object.¶
Links with a rel of enclosure
MUST be considered by the client to be attachments for download.¶
Links with a rel of describedby
MUST be considered by the client to be alternative representations of the description.¶
Links with a rel of icon
MUST be considered by the client to be images that it may use when presenting the calendar data to a user. The display
property may be set to indicate the purpose of the respective image.¶
Type: String[Boolean]
(optional).¶
A set of keywords or tags that relate to the object. The set is represented as a map, with the keys being the keywords. The value for each key in the map MUST be true.¶
Type: String[Boolean]
(optional).¶
A set of categories that relate to the calendar object. The set is represented as a map, with the keys being the categories specified as URIs. The value for each key in the map MUST be true.¶
In contrast to keywords, categories typically are structured. For example, a vendor owning the domain example.com
might define the categories http://example.com/categories/sports/american-football
and http://example.com/categories/music/r-b
.¶
Some events and tasks occur at regular or irregular intervals. Rather than having to copy the data for every occurrence there can be a master event with rules to generate recurrences, and/or overrides that add extra dates or exceptions to the rules.¶
The recurrence set is the complete set of instances for an object. It is generated by considering the following properties in order, all of which are optional:¶
Type: LocalDateTime
(optional).¶
If present, this JSCalendar object represents one occurrence of a recurring JSCalendar object. If present the recurrenceRules
and recurrenceOverrides
properties MUST NOT be present.¶
The value is a date-time either produced by the recurrenceRules
of the master event, or added as a key to the recurrenceOverrides
property of the master event.¶
Type: RecurrenceRule[]
(optional).¶
Defines a set of recurrence rules (repeating patterns) for recurring calendar objects.¶
A Event recurs by applying the recurrence rules to the start
date-time.¶
A Task recurs by applying the recurrence rules to the start
date-time, if defined, otherwise it recurs by the due
date-time, if defined. If the task defines neither a start
nor due
date-time, it MUST NOT define a recurrenceRules
property.¶
If multiple recurrence rules are given, each rule is to be applied and then the union of the results used, ignoring any duplicates.¶
A RecurrenceRule object is a JSON object mapping of a RECUR value type in iCalendar [RFC5545] [RFC7529] and has the same semantics. It has the following properties:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be RecurrenceRule
.¶
frequency: String
(mandatory)¶
The time span covered by each iteration of this recurrence rule (see Section 5.4.2.1 for full semantics). This MUST be one of the following values:¶
This is the FREQ part from iCalendar, converted to lowercase.¶
interval: UnsignedInt
(optional, default: 1)¶
The interval of iteration periods at which the recurrence repeats. If included, it MUST be an integer >= 1.¶
This is the INTERVAL part from iCalendar.¶
rscale: String
(optional, default: "gregorian")¶
The calendar system in which this recurrence rule operates, in lowercase. This MUST be either a CLDR-registered calendar system name [CLDR], or a vendor-specific value (see Section 4.3).¶
skip: String
(optional, default: "omit")¶
The behaviour to use when the expansion of the recurrence produces invalid dates. This property only has an effect if the frequency is "yearly" or "monthly". It MUST be one of the following values:¶
firstDayOfWeek: String
(optional, default: "mo")¶
The day on which the week is considered to start, represented as a lowercase abbreviated two-letter English day of the week. If included, it MUST be one of the following values:¶
This is the WKST part from iCalendar.¶
byDay: NDay[]
(optional)¶
Days of the week on which to repeat. An NDay
object has the following properties:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be NDay
.¶
day: String
(mandatory)¶
A day of the week on which to repeat; the allowed values are the same as for the firstDayOfWeek
RecurrenceRule property.¶
This is the day-of-the-week of the BYDAY part in iCalendar, converted to lowercase.¶
nthOfPeriod: Int
(optional)¶
If present, rather than representing every occurrence of the weekday defined in the day
property, it represents only a specific instance within the recurrence period. The value can be positive or negative, but MUST NOT be zero. A negative integer means nth last of period, with -1 being the last day.¶
This is the ordinal part of the BYDAY value in iCalendar (e.g., 1 or -3).¶
byMonthDay: Int[]
(optional)¶
Days of the month on which to repeat. Valid values are between 1 and the maximum number of days any month may have in the calendar given by the "rscale" property, and the negative values of these numbers. For example, in the Gregorian calendar valid values are 1 to 31 and -31 to -1. Negative values offset from the end of the month. The array MUST have at least one entry if included.¶
This is the BYMONTHDAY part in iCalendar.¶
byMonth: String[]
(optional)¶
The months in which to repeat. Each entry is a string representation of a number, starting from "1" for the first month in the calendar (e.g., "1" means January with the Gregorian calendar), with an optional "L" suffix (see [RFC7529]) for leap months (this MUST be uppercase, e.g., "3L"). The array MUST have at least one entry if included.¶
This is the BYMONTH part from iCalendar.¶
byYearDay: Int[]
(optional)¶
The days of the year on which to repeat. Valid values are between 1 and the maximum number of days any year may have in the calendar given by the "rscale" property, and the negative values of these numbers. For example, in the Gregorian calendar valid values are 1 to 366 and -366 to -1. Negative values offset from the end of the year. The array MUST have at least one entry if included.¶
This is the BYYEARDAY part from iCalendar.¶
byWeekNo: Int[]
(optional)¶
Weeks of the year in which to repeat. Valid values are between 1 and the maximum number of weeks any year may have in the calendar given by the "rscale" property, and the negative values of these numbers. For example, in the Gregorian calendar valid values are 1 to 53 and -53 to -1. The array MUST have at least one entry if included.¶
This is the BYWEEKNO part from iCalendar.¶
byHour: UnsignedInt[]
(optional)¶
The hours of the day in which to repeat. Valid values are 0 to 23. The array MUST have at least one entry if included. This is the BYHOUR part from iCalendar.¶
byMinute: UnsignedInt[]
(optional)¶
The minutes of the hour in which to repeat. Valid values are 0 to 59. The array MUST have at least one entry if included.¶
This is the BYMINUTE part from iCalendar.¶
bySecond: UnsignedInt[]
(optional)¶
The seconds of the minute in which to repeat. Valid values are 0 to 60. The array MUST have at least one entry if included.¶
This is the BYSECOND part from iCalendar.¶
bySetPosition: Int[]
(optional)¶
The occurrences within the recurrence interval to include in the final results. Negative values offset from the end of the list of occurrences. The array MUST have at least one entry if included. This is the BYSETPOS part from iCalendar.¶
count: UnsignedInt
(optional)¶
The number of occurrences at which to range-bound the recurrence. This MUST NOT be included if an until
property is specified.¶
This is the COUNT part from iCalendar.¶
until: LocalDateTime
(optional)¶
The date-time at which to finish recurring. The last occurrence is on or before this date-time. This MUST NOT be included if a count
property is specified. Note: if not specified otherwise for a specific JSCalendar object, this date is to be interpreted in the time zone specified in the JSCalendar object's timeZone
property.¶
This is the UNTIL part from iCalendar.¶
A recurrence rule specifies a set of date-times for recurring calendar objects. A recurrence rule has the following semantics. Note, wherever "year", "month" or "day of month" is used, this is within the calendar system given by the "rscale" property, which defaults to "gregorian" if omitted.¶
A set of candidates is generated. This is every second within a period defined by the frequency property value:¶
yearly
: every second from midnight on the 1st day of a year (inclusive) to midnight the 1st day of the following year (exclusive).¶
If skip is not "omit", the calendar system has leap months and there is a byMonth property, generate candidates for the leap months even if they don't occur in this year.¶
If skip is not "omit" and there is a byMonthDay property, presume each month has the maximum number of days any month may have in this calendar system when generating candidates, even if it's more than this month actually has.¶
monthly
: every second from midnight on the 1st day of a month (inclusive) to midnight on the 1st of the following month (exclusive).¶
If skip is not "omit" and there is a byMonthDay property, presume the month has the maximum number of days any month may have in this calendar system when generating candidates, even if it's more than this month actually has.¶
weekly
: every second from midnight (inclusive) on the first day of the week (as defined by the firstDayOfWeek property, or Monday if omitted), to midnight 7 days later (exclusive).¶
daily
: every second from midnight at the start of the day (inclusive) to midnight at the end of the day (exclusive).¶
hourly
: every second from the beginning of the hour (inclusive) to the beginning of the next hour (exclusive).¶
minutely
: every second from the beginning of the minute (inclusive) to the beginning of the next minute (exclusive).¶
secondly
: the second itself, only.¶
Each date-time candidate is compared against all of the byX properties of the rule except bySetPosition. If any property in the rule does not match the date-time, the date-time is eliminated. Each byX property is an array; the date-time matches the property if it matches any of the values in the array. The properties have the following semantics:¶
byWeekNo: the date-time is in the nth week of the year. Negative numbers mean the nth last week of the year. This corresponds to weeks according to week numbering as defined in ISO.8601.2004, with a week defined as a seven day period, starting on the firstDayOfWeek property value or Monday if omitted. Week number one of the calendar year is the first week that contains at least four days in that calendar year.¶
If the date-time is not valid (this may happen when generating candidates with a skip property in effect), it is always eliminated by this property.¶
byYearDay: the date-time is on the nth day of year. Negative numbers mean the nth last day of the year.¶
If the date-time is not valid (this may happen when generating candidates with a skip property in effect), it is always eliminated by this property.¶
If a skip property is defined and is not "omit", there may be candidates that do not correspond to valid dates (e.g., 31st February in the Gregorian calendar). In this case, the properties MUST be considered in the order above and:¶
When determining the set of occurrence dates for an event or task, the following extra rules must be applied:¶
start
date-time for events; the start
or due
date-time for tasks) is always the first occurrence in the expansion (and is counted if the recurrence is limited by a "count" property), even if it would normally not match the rule.¶
The following properties MUST be implicitly added to the rule under the given conditions:¶
secondly
and no bySecond property: Add a bySecond property with the sole value being the seconds value of the initial date-time.¶
secondly
or minutely
, and no byMinute property: Add a byMinute property with the sole value being the minutes value of the initial date-time.¶
secondly
, minutely
or hourly
and no byHour property: Add a byHour property with the sole value being the hours value of the initial date-time.¶
weekly
and no byDay property: Add a byDay property with the sole value being the day-of-the-week of the initial date-time.¶
monthly
and no byDay property and no byMonthDay property: Add a byMonthDay property with the sole value being the day-of-the-month of the initial date-time.¶
If frequency is yearly
and no byYearDay property:¶
Type: RecurrenceRule[]
(optional).¶
Defines a set of recurrence rules (repeating patterns) for date-times on which the object will not occur. The rules are interpreted the same as for the "recurrenceRules" property (see Section 5.4.2), with the exception that the initial date-time to which the rule is applied (the "start" date-time for events; the "start" or "due" date-time for tasks) is only considered part of the expansion if it matches the rule. The resulting set of date-times are then removed from those generated by the recurrenceRules property, as described in Section 5.4.¶
Type: LocalDateTime[PatchObject]
(optional).¶
Maps recurrence ids (the date-time produced by the recurrence rule) to the overridden properties of the recurrence instance.¶
If the recurrence id does not match a date-time from the recurrence rule (or no rule is specified), it is to be treated as an additional occurrence (like an RDATE from iCalendar). The patch object may often be empty in this case.¶
If the patch object defines the excluded
property of an occurrence to be true, this occurrence is omitted from the final set of recurrences for the calendar object (like an EXDATE from iCalendar). Such a patch object MUST NOT patch any other property.¶
By default, an occurrence inherits all properties from the main object except the start (or due) date-time, which is shifted to match the recurrence id LocalDateTime. However, individual properties of the occurrence can be modified by a patch, or multiple patches. It is valid to patch the start
property value, and this patch takes precedence over the value generated from the recurrence id. Both the recurrence id as well as the patched start
date-time may occur before the original JSCalendar object's start
or due
date.¶
A pointer in the PatchObject MUST be ignored if it starts with one of the following prefixes:¶
Type: Boolean
(optional, default: false).¶
Defines if this object is an overridden, excluded instance of a recurring JSCalendar object (see Section 5.4.4). If this property value is true, this calendar object instance MUST be removed from the occurrence expansion. The absence of this property, or the presence of its default value false, indicates that this instance MUST be included in the occurrence expansion.¶
Type: Boolean
(optional, default: false).¶
If true, use the user's default alerts and ignore the value of the alerts
property. Fetching user defaults is dependent on the API from which this JSCalendar object is being fetched, and is not defined in this specification. If an implementation cannot determine the user's default alerts, or none are set, it MUST process the alerts property as if useDefaultAlerts
is set to false.¶
Type: Id[Alert]
(optional).¶
A map of alert ids to Alert objects, representing alerts/reminders to display or send to the user for this calendar object.¶
An Alert Object has the following properties:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be Alert
.¶
trigger: OffsetTrigger|AbsoluteTrigger|UnknownTrigger
(mandatory)¶
Defines when to trigger the alert. New types may be defined in future documents.¶
An OffsetTrigger
object has the following properties:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be OffsetTrigger
.¶
offset: SignedDuration
(mandatory).¶
Defines the offset at which to trigger the alert relative to the time property defined in the relativeTo
property of the alert. Negative durations signify alerts before the time property, positive durations signify alerts after.¶
relativeTo: String
(optional, default: start
)¶
Specifies the time property that the alert offset is relative to. The value MUST be one of:¶
An AbsoluteTrigger
object has the following properties:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be AbsoluteTrigger
.¶
when: UTCDateTime
(mandatory).¶
Defines a specific UTC date-time when the alert is triggered.¶
An UnknownTrigger
object is an object that contains a @type
property whose value is not recognized (i.e., not OffsetTrigger
or AbsoluteTrigger
), plus zero or more other properties. This is for compatibility with client extensions and future specifications. Implementations SHOULD NOT trigger for trigger types they do not understand, but MUST preserve them.¶
acknowledged: UTCDateTime
(optional)¶
This records when an alert was last acknowledged. This is set when the user has dismissed the alert; other clients that sync this property SHOULD automatically dismiss or suppress duplicate alerts (alerts with the same alert id that triggered on or before this date-time).¶
For a recurring calendar object, setting the acknowledged
property MUST NOT add a new override to the recurrenceOverrides
property. If the alert is not already overridden, the acknowledged property MUST be set on the alert in the master event/task.¶
Certain kinds of alert action may not provide feedback as to when the user sees them, for example email based alerts. For those kinds of alerts, this property MUST be set immediately when the alert is triggered and the action successfully carried out.¶
relatedTo: String[Relation]
(optional)¶
Relates this alert to other alerts in the same JSCalendar object. If the user wishes to snooze an alert, the application MUST create an alert to trigger after snoozing. This new snooze alert MUST set a parent relation to the identifier of the original alert.¶
action: String
(optional, default: display
)¶
Describes how to alert the user.¶
The value MUST be at most one of the following values, a value registered in the IANA JSCalendar Enum Values registry, or a vendor-specific value (see Section 4.3):¶
Type: String[PatchObject]
(optional).¶
A map of language tags [RFC5646] to patch objects, which localize the calendar object into the locale of the respective language tag.¶
See the description of PatchObject Section 2.4.9 for the structure of the PatchObject. The patches are applied to the top-level calendar object. In addition, the locale
property of the patched object is set to the language tag. All pointers for patches MUST end with one of the following suffixes; any patch that does not follow this MUST be ignored unless otherwise specified in a future RFC:¶
A patch MUST NOT have the prefix recurrenceOverrides
; any localization of the override MUST be a patch to the localizations property inside the override instead.¶
For example, a patch to locations/abcd1234/title
is permissible, but a patch to uid
or recurrenceOverrides/2020-01-05T14:00:00/title
is not.¶
Note that this specification does not define how to maintain validity of localized content. For example, a client application changing a JSCalendar object's title property might also need to update any localizations of this property. Client implementations SHOULD provide the means to manage localizations, but how to achieve this is specific to the application's workflow and requirements.¶
Type: TimeZoneId|null
(optional, default: null).¶
Identifies the time zone the object is scheduled in, or null for floating time. This is either a name from the IANA Time Zone Database [TZDB] or the TimeZoneId of a custom time zone from the timeZones
property ( Section 5.8.2). If omitted, this MUST be presumed to be null (i.e., floating time).¶
Type: TimeZoneId[TimeZone]
(optional).¶
Maps identifiers of custom time zones to their time zone definitions. The following restrictions apply for each key in the map:¶
/
character.¶
paramtext
value as specified in Section 3.1 of [RFC5545].¶
An identifier need only be unique to this JSCalendar object. It MAY differ from the tzId
property value of the TimeZone object it maps to.¶
A JSCalendar object may be part in a hierarchy of other JSCalendar objects (say, a Event is an entry in a Group). In this case, the set of time zones is the sum of the time zone definitions of this object and its parent objects. If multiple time zones with the same identifier exist, then the definition closest to the calendar object in relation to its parents MUST be used. (In context of Event, a time zone definition in its timeZones property has precedence over a definition of the same id in the Group). Time zone definitions in any children of the calendar object MUST be ignored.¶
A TimeZone object maps a VTIMEZONE component from iCalendar [RFC5545] and the semantics are as defined there. A valid time zone MUST define at least one transition rule in the standard
or daylight
property. Its properties are:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be TimeZone
.¶
tzId: String
(mandatory).¶
The TZID property from iCalendar. Note that this implies that the value MUST be a valid paramtext
value as specified in Section 3.1 of [RFC5545].¶
updated: UTCDateTime
(optional)¶
The LAST-MODIFIED property from iCalendar.¶
url: String
(optional)¶
The TZURL property from iCalendar.¶
validUntil: UTCDateTime
(optional)¶
aliases: String[Boolean]
(optional)¶
standard: TimeZoneRule[]
(optional)¶
The STANDARD sub-components from iCalendar. The order MUST be preserved during conversion.¶
daylight: TimeZoneRule[]
(optional).¶
The DAYLIGHT sub-components from iCalendar. The order MUST be preserved during conversion.¶
A TimeZoneRule object maps a STANDARD or DAYLIGHT sub-component from iCalendar, with the restriction that at most one recurrence rule is allowed per rule. It has the following properties:¶
@type: String
(mandatory)¶
Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be TimeZoneRule
.¶
start: LocalDateTime
(mandatory)¶
The DTSTART property from iCalendar.¶
offsetFrom: String
(mandatory)¶
The TZOFFSETFROM property from iCalendar.¶
offsetTo: String
(mandatory)¶
The TZOFFSETTO property from iCalendar.¶
recurrenceRules: RecurrenceRule[]
(optional)¶
The RRULE property mapped as specified in Section 5.4.2. During recurrence rule evaluation, the until
property value MUST be interpreted as a local time in the UTC time zone.¶
recurrenceOverrides: LocalDateTime[PatchObject]
(optional)¶
Maps the RDATE properties from iCalendar. The set is represented as an object, with the keys being the recurrence dates. The patch object MUST be the empty JSON object ({}).¶
names: String[Boolean]
(optional)¶
Maps the TZNAME properties from iCalendar to a JSON set. The set is represented as an object, with the keys being the names, excluding any tznparam
component from iCalendar. The value for each key in the map MUST be true.¶
comments: String[]
(optional).¶
Maps the COMMENT properties from iCalendar. The order MUST be preserved during conversion.¶
In addition to the common JSCalendar object properties Section 5 a Event has the following properties:¶
Type: LocalDateTime
(mandatory).¶
The date/time the event starts in the event's time zone (as specified in the timeZone
property, see Section 5.8.1).¶
Type: Duration
(optional, default: PT0S
).¶
The zero or positive duration of the event in the event's start time zone. The end time of an event can be found by adding the duration to the event's start time.¶
A Event MAY involve start and end locations that are in different time zones (e.g., a trans-continental flight). This can be expressed using the relativeTo
and timeZone
properties of the Event's Location objects (see Section 5.2.5).¶
Type: String
(optional, default: confirmed
).¶
The scheduling status (Section 5.5) of a Event. If set, it MUST be one of the following values, another value registered in the IANA JSCalendar Enum Values registry, or a vendor-specific value (see Section 4.3):¶
In addition to the common JSCalendar object properties Section 5 a Task has the following properties:¶
Type: LocalDateTime
(optional).¶
The date/time the task should start in the task's time zone.¶
Type: Duration
(optional).¶
Specifies the estimated positive duration of time the task takes to complete.¶
Type: UnsignedInt
(optional).¶
Represents the percent completion of the task overall. The property value MUST be a positive integer between 0 and 100.¶
Type: String
(optional).¶
Defines the progress of this task. If omitted, the default progress ( Section 5.5) of a Task is defined as follows (in order of evaluation):¶
completed
: if the progress
property value of all participants is completed
.¶
failed
: if at least one progress
property value of a participant is failed
.¶
in-process
: if at least one progress
property value of a participant is in-process
.¶
needs-action
: If none of the other criteria match.¶
If set, it MUST be one of the following values, another value registered in the IANA JSCalendar Enum Values registry, or a vendor-specific value (see Section 4.3):¶
Type: UTCDateTime
(optional).¶
Specifies the date/time the progress
property of either the task overall ( Section 6.2.5) or a specific participant (Section 5.5.5) was last updated.¶
If the task is recurring and has future instances, a client may want to keep track of the last progress update timestamp of a specific task recurrence, but leave other instances unchanged. One way to achieve this is by overriding the progressUpdated property in the task recurrenceOverrides
property. However, this could produce a long list of timestamps for regularly recurring tasks. An alternative approach is to split the Task into a current, single instance of Task with this instance progress update time and a future recurring instance. See also Section 5.1.3 on splitting.¶
In addition, the following Group-specific properties are supported:¶
The following examples illustrate several aspects of the JSCalendar data model and format. The examples may omit mandatory or additional properties, which is indicated by a placeholder property with key ...
. While most of the examples use calendar event objects, they are also illustrative for tasks.¶
This example illustrates a simple one-time event. It specifies a one-time event that begins on January 15, 2020 at 1pm New York local time and ends after 1 hour.¶
{ "@type": "Event", "uid": "a8df6573-0474-496d-8496-033ad45d7fea", "updated": "2020-01-02T18:23:04Z", "title": "Some event", "start": "2020-01-15T13:00:00", "timeZone": "America/New_York", "duration": "PT1H" }¶
This example illustrates a simple task for a plain to-do item.¶
{ "@type": "Task", "uid": "2a358cee-6489-4f14-a57f-c104db4dc2f2", "updated": "2020-01-09T14:32:01Z", "title": "Do something" }¶
This example illustrates a simple calendar object group that contains an event and a task.¶
{ "@type": "Group", "uid": "bf0ac22b-4989-4caf-9ebd-54301b4ee51a", "updated": "2020-01-15T18:00:00Z", "name": "A simple group", "entries": [{ "@type": "Event", "uid": "a8df6573-0474-496d-8496-033ad45d7fea", "updated": "2020-01-02T18:23:04Z", "title": "Some event", "start": "2020-01-15T13:00:00", "timeZone": "America/New_York", "duration": "PT1H" }, { "@type": "Task", "uid": "2a358cee-6489-4f14-a57f-c104db4dc2f2", "updated": "2020-01-09T14:32:01Z", "title": "Do something" }] }¶
This example illustrates an event for an international holiday. It specifies an all-day event on April 1 that occurs every year since the year 1900.¶
{ "...": "", "title": "April Fool's Day", "showWithoutTime": true, "start": "1900-04-01T00:00:00", "duration": "P1D", "recurrenceRules": [{ "@type": "RecurrenceRule", "frequency": "yearly" }] }¶
This example illustrates a task with a due date. It is a reminder to buy groceries before 6pm Vienna local time on January 19, 2020. The calendar user expects to need 1 hour for shopping.¶
{ "...": "", "title": "Buy groceries", "due": "2020-01-19T18:00:00", "timeZone": "Europe/Vienna", "estimatedDuration": "PT1H" }¶
This example illustrates the use of end time zones by use of an international flight. The flight starts on April 1, 2020 at 9am in Berlin local time. The duration of the flight is scheduled at 10 hours 30 minutes. The time at the flight's destination is in the same time zone as Tokyo. Calendar clients could use the end time zone to display the arrival time in Tokyo local time and highlight the time zone difference of the flight. The location names can serve as input for navigation systems.¶
{ "...": "", "title": "Flight XY51 to Tokyo", "start": "2020-04-01T09:00:00", "timeZone": "Europe/Berlin", "duration": "PT10H30M", "locations": { "1": { "@type": "Location", "rel": "start", "name": "Frankfurt Airport (FRA)" }, "2": { "@type": "Location", "rel": "end", "name": "Narita International Airport (NRT)", "timeZone": "Asia/Tokyo" } } }¶
This example illustrates the use of floating time. Since January 1, 2020, a calendar user blocks 30 minutes every day to practice Yoga at 7am local time, in whatever time zone the user is located on that date.¶
{ "...": "", "title": "Yoga", "start": "2020-01-01T07:00:00", "duration": "PT30M", "recurrenceRules": [{ "@type": "RecurrenceRule", "frequency": "daily" }] }¶
This example illustrates an event that happens at both a physical and a virtual location. Fans can see a live concert on premises or online. The event title and descriptions are localized.¶
{ "...": "", "title": "Live from Music Bowl: The Band", "description": "Go see the biggest music event ever!", "locale": "en", "start": "2020-07-04T17:00:00", "timeZone": "America/New_York", "duration": "PT3H", "locations": { "loc1": { "@type": "Location", "name": "The Music Bowl", "description": "Music Bowl, Central Park, New York", "coordinates": "geo:40.7829,-73.9654" } }, "virtualLocations": { "vloc1": { "@type": "VirtualLocation", "name": "Free live Stream from Music Bowl", "uri": "https://stream.example.com/the_band_2020" } }, "localizations": { "de": { "title": "Live von der Music Bowl: The Band!", "description": "Schau dir das größte Musikereignis an!", "virtualLocations/vloc1/name": "Gratis Live-Stream aus der Music Bowl" } } }¶
This example illustrates the use of recurrence overrides. A math course at a University is held for the first time on January 8, 2020 at 9am London time and occurs every week until June 24, 2020. Each lecture lasts for one hour and 30 minutes and is located at the Mathematics department. This event has exceptional occurrences: at the last occurrence of the course is an exam, which lasts for 2 hours and starts at 10am. Also, the location of the exam differs from the usual location. On April 1 no course is held. On January 7 at 2pm is an optional introduction course, that occurs before the first regular lecture.¶
{ "...": "", "title": "Calculus I", "start": "2020-01-08T09:00:00", "timeZone": "Europe/London", "duration": "PT1H30M", "locations": { "mlab": { "@type": "Location", "title": "Math lab room 1", "description": "Math Lab I, Department of Mathematics" } }, "recurrenceRules": [{ "@type": "RecurrenceRule", "frequency": "weekly", "until": "2020-06-24T09:00:00" }], "recurrenceOverrides": { "2020-01-07T14:00:00": { "title": "Introduction to Calculus I (optional)" }, "2020-04-01T09:00:00": { "excluded": true }, "2020-06-25T09:00:00": { "title": "Calculus I Exam", "start": "2020-06-25T10:00:00", "duration": "PT2H", "locations": { "auditorium": { "@type": "Location", "title": "Big Auditorium", "description": "Big Auditorium, Other Road" } } } } }¶
This example illustrates scheduled events. A team meeting occurs every week since January 8, 2020 at 9am Johannesburg time. The event owner also chairs the event. Participants meet in a virtual meeting room. An attendee has accepted the invitation, but on March 4, 2020 he is unavailable and declined participation for this occurrence.¶
{ "...": "", "title": "FooBar team meeting", "start": "2020-01-08T09:00:00", "timeZone": "Africa/Johannesburg", "duration": "PT1H", "virtualLocations": { "1": { "@type": "VirtualLocation", "name": "ChatMe meeting room", "uri": "https://chatme.example.com?id=1234567&pw=a8a24627b63d396e" } }, "recurrenceRules": [{ "@type": "RecurrenceRule", "frequency": "weekly" }], "replyTo": { "imip": "mailto:f245f875-7f63-4a5e-a2c8@schedule.example.com" }, "participants": { "dG9tQGZvb2Jhci5xlLmNvbQ": { "@type": "Participant", "name": "Tom Tool", "email": "tom@foobar.example.com", "sendTo": { "imip": "mailto:tom@calendar.example.com" }, "participationStatus": "accepted", "roles": { "attendee": true } }, "em9lQGZvb2GFtcGxlLmNvbQ": { "@type": "Participant", "name": "Zoe Zelda", "email": "zoe@foobar.example.com", "sendTo": { "imip": "mailto:zoe@foobar.example.com" }, "participationStatus": "accepted", "roles": { "owner": true, "attendee": true, "chair": true } } }, "recurrenceOverrides": { "2020-03-04T09:00:00": { "participants/dG9tQGZvb2Jhci5xlLmNvbQ/participationStatus": "declined" } } }{ "...": "", "title": "FooBar team meeting", "start": "2020-01-08T09:00:00", "timeZone": "Africa/Johannesburg", "duration": "PT1H", "virtualLocations": { "1": { "@type": "VirtualLocation", "name": "ChatMe meeting room", "uri": "https://chatme.example.com?id=1234567&pw=a8a24627b63d396e" } }, "recurrenceRules": [{ "@type": "RecurrenceRule", "frequency": "weekly" }], "replyTo": { "imip": "mailto:f245f875-7f63-4a5e-a2c8@schedule.example.com" }, "participants": { "dG9tQGZvb2Jhci5xlLmNvbQ": { "@type": "Participant", "name": "Tom Tool", "email": "tom@foobar.example.com", "sendTo": { "imip": "mailto:tom@calendar.example.com" }, "participationStatus": "accepted", "roles": { "attendee": true } }, "em9lQGZvb2GFtcGxlLmNvbQ": { "@type": "Participant", "name": "Zoe Zelda", "email": "zoe@foobar.example.com", "sendTo": { "imip": "mailto:zoe@foobar.example.com" }, "participationStatus": "accepted", "roles": { "owner": true, "attendee": true, "chair": true } } }, "recurrenceOverrides": { "2020-03-04T09:00:00": { "participants/dG9tQGZvb2Jhci5xlLmNvbQ/participationStatus": "declined" } } }¶
Calendaring and scheduling information is very privacy-sensitive. It can reveal the social network of a user; location information of this user and those in their social network; identity and credentials information; and the patterns of behavior of the user in both the physical and cyber realm. Additionally, calendar events and tasks can could influence the physical location of a user or their cyber behavior within a known time window. Its transmission and storage must be done carefully to protect it from possible threats, such as eavesdropping, replay, message insertion, deletion, modification, and on-path attacks.¶
The data being stored and transmitted may be used in systems with real world consequences. For example, a home automation system may turn an alarm on and off. Or a coworking space may charge money to the organiser of an event that books one of their meeting rooms. Such systems must be careful to authenticate all data they receive to prevent them from being subverted, and ensure the change comes from an authorized entity.¶
This document just defines the data format; such considerations are primarily the concern of the API or method of storage and transmission of such files.¶
A recurrence rule may produce infinite occurrences of an event. Implementations MUST handle expansions carefully to prevent accidental or deliberate resource exhaustion.¶
Conversely, a recurrence rule may be specified that does not expand to anything. It is not always possible to tell this through static analysis of the rule, so implementations MUST be careful to avoid getting stuck in infinite loops, or otherwise exhausting resources while searching for the next occurrence.¶
Events recur in the event's time zone. If the user is in a different time zone, daylight saving transitions may cause an event that normally occurs at, for example, 9am to suddenly shift an hour earlier. This may be used in an attempt to cause a participant to miss an important meeting. User agents must be careful to translate date-times correctly between time zones and may wish to call out unexpected changes in the time of a recurring event.¶
As for any serialization format, parsers need to thoroughly check the syntax of the supplied data. JSON uses opening and closing tags for several types and structures, and it is possible that the end of the supplied data will be reached when scanning for a matching closing tag; this is an error condition, and implementations need to stop scanning at the end of the supplied data.¶
JSON also uses a string encoding with some escape sequences to encode special characters within a string. Care is needed when processing these escape sequences to ensure that they are fully formed before the special processing is triggered, with special care taken when the escape sequences appear adjacent to other (non-escaped) special characters or adjacent to the end of data (as in the previous paragraph).¶
If parsing JSON into a non-textual structured data format, implementations may need to allocate storage to hold JSON string elements. Since JSON does not use explicit string lengths, the risk of denial of service due to resource exhaustion is small, but implementations may still wish to place limits on the size of allocations they are willing to make in any given context, to avoid untrusted data causing excessive memory allocation.¶
Several JSCalendar properties contain URIs as values, and processing these properties requires extra care. Section 7 of [RFC3986] discusses security risks related to URIs.¶
Fetching remote resources carries inherent risks. Connections must only be allowed on well known ports, using allowed protocols (generally just HTTP/HTTPS on their default ports). The URL must be resolved externally and not allowed to access internal resources. Connecting to an external source reveals IP (and therefore generally location) information.¶
A maliciously constructed JSCalendar object may contain a very large number of URIs. In the case of published calendars with a large number of subscribers, such objects could be widely distributed. Implementations should be careful to limit the automatic fetching of linked resources to reduce the risk of this being an amplification vector for a denial-of-service attack.¶
Calendar systems may receive JSCalendar files from untrusted sources, in particular as attachments to emails. This can be a vector for an attacker to inject spam into a user's calendar. This may confuse, annoy, and mislead users, or overwhelm their calendar with bogus events, preventing them from seeing legitimate ones.¶
Heuristic, statistical or machine-learning-based filters can be effective in filtering out spam. Authentication mechanisms such as DKIM [RFC6376] can help establish the source of messages and associate the data with existing relationships (such as an address book contact). Misclassifications are always possible, however, and providing a mechanism for users to quickly correct this is advised.¶
Confusable unicode characters may be used to trick a user into trusting a JSCalendar file that appears to come from a known contact but is actually from a similar-looking source controlled by an attacker.¶
It is important for calendar systems to maintain the UID of an event when updating it to avoid unexpected duplication of events. Consumers of the data may not remove the previous version of the event if it has a different UID. This can lead to a confusing situation for the user, with many variations of the event and no indication of which one is correct. Care must be taken by consumers of the data to remove old events where possible to avoid an accidental denial-of-service attack due to the volume of data.¶
Events recur in a particular time zone. When this differs from the user's current time zone, it may unexpectedly cause an occurrence to shift in time for that user due to a daylight savings change in the event's time zone. A maliciously crafted event could attempt to confuse users with such an event to ensure a meeting is missed.¶
This document defines a media type for use with JSCalendar data formatted in JSON.¶
Type name: | application |
Subtype name: | jscalendar+json |
Required parameters: | type |
The type
parameter conveys the type of the JSCalendar data in the body part. The allowed parameter values correspond to the @type
property of the JSON-formatted JSCalendar object in the body:¶
jsevent
: the @type
property value MUST be Event
¶
jstask
: the @type
property value MUST be Task
¶
jsgroup
: the @type
property value MUST be Group
¶
No other parameter values are allowed. The parameter MUST NOT occur more than once.¶
none¶
Same as encoding considerations of application/json as specified in Section 11 of [RFC8259].¶
While JSCalendar is designed to avoid ambiguities as much as possible, when converting objects from other calendar formats to/from JSCalendar it is possible that differing representations for the same logical data might arise, or ambiguities in interpretation. The semantic equivalence of two JSCalendar objects may be determined differently by different applications, for example where URL values differ in case between the two objects.¶
This specification.¶
Applications that currently make use of the text/calendar and application/calendar+json media types can use this as an alternative. Similarly, applications that use the application/json media type to transfer calendaring data can use this to further specify the content.¶
The IANA will create the "JSCalendar Properties" registry to allow interoperability of extensions to JSCalendar objects.¶
This registry follows the Expert Review process (Section 4.5 of [RFC8126]). If the "intended use" field is common
, sufficient documentation is required to enable interoperability. Preliminary community review for this registry is optional but strongly encouraged.¶
A registration can have an intended use of common
, reserved
, or obsolete
. The IANA will list common-use registrations prominently and separately from those with other intended use values.¶
A reserved
registration reserves a property name without assigning semantics to avoid name collisions with future extensions or protocol use.¶
An obsolete
registration denotes a property that is no longer expected to be added by up-to-date systems. A new property has probably been defined covering the obsolete property's semantics.¶
The JSCalendar property registration procedure is not a formal standards process but rather an administrative procedure intended to allow community comment and sanity checking without excessive time delay. It is designed to encourage vendors to document and register new properties they add for use cases not covered by the original specification, leading to increased interoperability.¶
Notice of a potential new registration SHOULD be sent to the Calext mailing list mailto:calsify@ietf.org>; for review. This mailing list is appropriate to solicit community feedback on a proposed new property.¶
Properties registrations must be marked with their intended use: "common", "reserved" or "obsolete".¶
The intent of the public posting to this list is to solicit comments and feedback on the choice of the property name, the unambiguity of the specification document, and a review of any interoperability or security considerations. The submitter may submit a revised registration proposal or abandon the registration completely at any time.¶
Registration requests can be sent to <mailto:iana@iana.org>.¶
The primary concern of the designated expert (DE) is preventing name collisions and encouraging the submitter to document security and privacy considerations. For a common-use registration, the DE is expected to confirm that suitable documentation, as described in Section 4.6 of [RFC8126], is available to ensure interoperability. That documentation will usually be in an RFC, but simple definitions are likely to use a web/wiki page, and if a sentence or two is deemed sufficient it could be described in the registry itself. The DE should also verify that the property name does not conflict with work that is active or already published within the IETF. A published specification is not required for reserved or obsolete registrations.¶
The DE will either approve or deny the registration request and publish a notice of the decision to the Calext WG mailing list or its successor, as well as inform IANA. A denial notice must be justified by an explanation, and, in the cases where it is possible, concrete suggestions on how the request can be modified so as to become acceptable should be provided.¶
Once a JSCalendar property has been published by the IANA, the change controller may request a change to its definition. The same procedure that would be appropriate for the original registration request is used to process a change request.¶
JSCalendar property registrations may not be deleted; properties that are no longer believed appropriate for use can be declared obsolete by a change to their "intended use" field; such properties will be clearly marked in the lists published by the IANA.¶
Significant changes to a JSCalendar property's definition should be requested only when there are serious omissions or errors in the published specification, as such changes may cause interoperability issues. When review is required, a change request may be denied if it renders entities that were valid under the previous definition invalid under the new definition.¶
The owner of a JSCalendar property may pass responsibility to another person or agency by informing the IANA; this can be done without discussion or review.¶
IETF
for IETF-stream RFCs).¶
The following table lists the initial entries of the JSCalendar Properties registry. All properties are for common-use. All RFC section references are for this document. The change controller for all these properties is "IETF".¶
Property Name | Property Type | Property Context | Reference or Description |
---|---|---|---|
@type | String | Event, Task, Group, AbsoluteTrigger, Alert, Link, Location, NDay, OffsetTrigger, Participant, RecurrenceRule, Relation, TimeZone, TimeZoneRule, VirtualLocation | Section 5.1.1, Section 5.6.2, Section 2.4.11, Section 5.2.5, Section 5.5.5, Section 5.4.2, Section 5.1.3, Section 5.8.2, Section 5.3 |
acknowledged | UTCDateTime | Alert | Section 5.6.2 |
action | String | Alert | Section 5.6.2 |
alerts | Id[Alert] | Event, Task | Section 5.6.2 |
aliases | String[Boolean] | TimeZone | Section 5.8.2 |
byDay | NDay[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
byHour | UnsignedInt[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
byMinute | UnsignedInt[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
byMonth | String[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
byMonthDay | Int[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
bySecond | UnsignedInt[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
bySetPosition | Int[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
byWeekNo | Int[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
byYearDay | Int[] | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
categories | String[Boolean] | Event, Task, Group | Section 5.3.4 |
cid | String | Link | Section 2.4.11 |
color | String | Event, Task, Group | Section 5.3.5 |
comments | String[] | TimeZoneRule | Section 5.8.2 |
contentType | String | Link | Section 2.4.11 |
coordinates | String | Location | Section 5.2.5 |
count | UnsignedInt | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
created | UnsignedInt | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
day | String | NDay | Section 5.4.2 |
daylight | TimeZoneRule[] | TimeZone | Section 5.8.2 |
delegatedFrom | String[Boolean] | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
delegatedTo | String[Boolean] | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
description | String | Event, Task, Location, Participant, VirtualLocation | Section 5.2.2, Section 5.2.5, Section 5.5.5, Section 5.3 |
descriptionContentType | String | Event, Task | Section 5.2.3 |
display | String | Link | Section 2.4.11 |
due | LocalDateTime | Task | Section 6.2.1 |
duration | Duration | Event | Section 6.1.2 |
String | Participant | Section 5.5.5 | |
entries | (Task|Event)[] | Group | Section 6.3.1 |
estimatedDuration | Duration | Task | Section 6.2.3 |
excluded | Boolean | Event, Task | Section 5.4.5 |
excludedRecurrenceRules | RecurrenceRule[] | Event, Task | Section 5.4.3 |
expectReply | Boolean | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
features | String[Boolean] | VirtualLocation | Section 5.3 |
firstDayOfWeek | String | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
freeBusyStatus | String | Event, Task | Section 5.5.2 |
frequency | String | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
href | String | Link | Section 2.4.11 |
interval | UnsignedInt | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
invitedBy | String | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
keywords | String[Boolean] | Event, Task, Group | Section 5.3.3 |
kind | String | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
language | String | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
links | Id[Link] | Group, Event, Task, Location, Participant | Section 5.3.1, Section 5.2.5, Section 5.5.5 |
locale | String | Group, Event, Task | Section 5.3.2 |
localizations | String[PatchObject] | Event, Task | Section 5.7.1 |
locationId | String | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
locations | Id[Location] | Event, Task | Section 5.2.5 |
locationTypes | String[Boolean] | Location | Section 5.2.5 |
memberOf | String[Boolean] | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
method | String | Event, Task | Section 5.1.8 |
name | String | Location, VirtualLocation, Participant | Section 5.2.5, Section 5.3, Section 5.5.5 |
names | String[Boolean] | TimeZoneRule | Section 5.8.2 |
nthOfPeriod | Int | NDay | Section 5.4.2 |
offset | SignedDuration | OffsetTrigger | Section 5.6.2 |
offsetFrom | UTCDateTime | TimeZoneRule | Section 5.8.2 |
offsetTo | UTCDateTime | TimeZoneRule | Section 5.8.2 |
participants | Id[Participant] | Event, Task | Section 5.5.5 |
participationComment | String | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
participationStatus | String | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
percentComplete | UnsignedInt | Task, Participant | Section 6.2.4 |
priority | Int | Event, Task | Section 5.5.1 |
privacy | String | Event, Task | Section 5.5.3 |
prodId | String | Event, Task, Group | Section 5.1.4 |
progress | String | Task, Participant | Section 6.2.5 |
progressUpdated | UTCDateTime | Task, Participant | Section 6.2.6 |
recurrenceId | LocalDateTime | Event, Task | Section 5.4.1 |
recurrenceOverrides | LocalDateTime[PatchObject] | Event, Task, TimeZoneRule | Section 5.4.4, Section 5.8.2 |
recurrenceRules | RecurrenceRule[] | Event, Task, TimeZoneRule | Section 5.4.2, Section 5.8.2 |
rel | String | Link | Section 2.4.11 |
relatedTo | String[Relation] | Event, Task, Alert | Section 5.1.3, Section 5.6.2 |
relation | String[Boolean] | Relation | Section 2.4.10 |
relativeTo | String | OffsetTrigger, Location | Section 5.6.2, Section 5.2.5 |
replyTo | String[String] | Event, Task | Section 5.5.4 |
requestStatus | String | Event, Task | Section 5.5.6 |
roles | String[Boolean] | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
rscale | String | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
standard | TimeZoneRule[] | TimeZone | Section 5.8.2 |
start | LocalDateTime | TimeZoneRule | Section 5.8.2 |
scheduleAgent | String | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
scheduleForceSend | Boolean | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
scheduleSequence | UnsignedInt | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
scheduleStatus | String[] | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
scheduleUpdated | UTCDateTime | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
sendTo | String[String] | Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
sequence | UnsignedInt | Event, Task | Section 5.1.7 |
showWithoutTime | Boolean | Event, Task | Section 5.2.4 |
size | UnsignedInt | Link | Section 2.4.11 |
skip | String | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
source | String | Group | Section 6.3.2 |
start | LocalDateTime | Event, Task | Section 6.1.1, Section 6.2.2 |
status | String | Event | Section 6.1.3 |
timeZone | TimeZoneId|null | Event, Task, Location | Section 5.8.1, Section 5.2.5 |
timeZones | TimeZoneId[TimeZone] | Event, Task | Section 5.8.2 |
title | String | Event, Task, Group, Link | Section 5.2.1 |
trigger | OffsetTrigger|AbsoluteTrigger|UnknownTrigger | Alert | Section 5.6.2 |
tzId | String | TimeZone | Section 5.8.2 |
uid | String | Event, Task, Group | Section 5.1.2 |
until | LocalDateTime | RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
updated | UTCDateTime | Event, Task, Group | Section 5.1.6 |
uri | String | VirtualLocation | Section 5.3 |
url | String | TimeZone | Section 5.8.2 |
useDefaultAlerts | Boolean | Event, Task | Section 5.6.1 |
validUntil | UTCDateTime | TimeZone | Section 5.8.2 |
virtualLocations | Id[VirtualLocation] | Event, Task | Section 5.3 |
when | UTCDateTime | AbsoluteTrigger | Section 5.6.2 |
The IANA will create the "JSCalendar Types" registry to avoid name collisions and provide a complete reference for all data types used for JSCalendar property values. The registration process is the same as for the JSCalendar Properties registry, as defined in Section 9.2.¶
IETF
for IETF-stream RFCs).¶
The following table lists the initial entries of the JSCalendar Types registry. All properties are for common-use. All RFC section references are for this document. The change controller for all these properties is "IETF".¶
Type Name | Reference or Description |
---|---|
Alert | Section 5.6.2 |
Boolean | Section 2.3 |
Duration | Section 2.4.6 |
Id | Section 2.4.1 |
Int | Section 2.4.2 |
LocalDateTime | Section 2.4.5 |
Link | Section 2.4.11 |
Location | Section 5.2.5 |
NDay | Section 5.4.2 |
Number | Section 2.3 |
Participant | Section 5.5.5 |
PatchObject | Section 2.4.9 |
RecurrenceRule | Section 5.4.2 |
Relation | Section 2.4.10 |
SignedDuration | Section 2.4.7 |
String | Section 2.3 |
TimeZone | Section 5.8.2 |
TimeZoneId | Section 2.4.8 |
TimeZoneRule | Section 5.8.2 |
UnsignedInt | Section 2.4.3 |
UTCDateTime | Section 2.4.4 |
VirtualLocation | Section 5.3 |
The IANA will create the "JSCalendar Enum Values" registry to allow interoperable extension of semantics for properties with enumerable values. Each such property will have a subregistry of allowed values. The registration process for a new enum value or adding a new enumerable property is the same as for the JSCalendar Properties registry, as defined in Section 9.2.¶
This template is for adding a subregistry for a new enumerable property to the JSCalendar Enum registry.¶
IETF
for properties defined in IETF-stream RFCs).¶
This template is for adding a new enum value to a subregistry in the JSCalendar Enum registry.¶
For each subregistry created in this section, all RFC section references are for this document.¶
action¶
Alert¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
display | Section 5.6.2 |
Section 5.6.2 |
display¶
Link¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
badge | Section 2.4.11 |
graphic | Section 2.4.11 |
fullsize | Section 2.4.11 |
thumbnail | Section 2.4.11 |
features¶
VirtualLocation¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
audio | Section 5.3 |
chat | Section 5.3 |
feed | Section 5.3 |
moderator | Section 5.3 |
phone | Section 5.3 |
screen | Section 5.3 |
video | Section 5.3 |
freeBusyStatus¶
Event, Task¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
free | Section 5.5.2 |
busy | Section 5.5.2 |
kind¶
Participant¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
individual | Section 5.5.5 |
group | Section 5.5.5 |
resource | Section 5.5.5 |
location | Section 5.5.5 |
participationStatus¶
Participant¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
needs-action | Section 5.5.5 |
accepted | Section 5.5.5 |
declined | Section 5.5.5 |
tentative | Section 5.5.5 |
delegated | Section 5.5.5 |
privacy¶
Event, Task¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
public | Section 5.5.3 |
private | Section 5.5.3 |
secret | Section 5.5.3 |
progress¶
Task, Participant¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
needs-action | Section 6.2.5 |
in-process | Section 6.2.5 |
completed | Section 6.2.5 |
failed | Section 6.2.5 |
cancelled | Section 6.2.5 |
relation¶
Relation¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
first | Section 2.4.10 |
next | Section 2.4.10 |
child | Section 2.4.10 |
parent | Section 2.4.10 |
relativeTo¶
OffsetTrigger, Location¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
start | Section 5.6.2 |
end | Section 5.6.2 |
roles¶
Participant¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
owner | Section 5.5.5 |
attendee | Section 5.5.5 |
optional | Section 5.5.5 |
informational | Section 5.5.5 |
chair | Section 5.5.5 |
contact | Section 5.5.5 |
scheduleAgent¶
Participant¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
server | Section 5.5.5 |
client | Section 5.5.5 |
none | Section 5.5.5 |
status¶
Event¶
IETF¶
Enum Value | Reference or Description |
---|---|
confirmed | Section 6.1.3 |
cancelled | Section 6.1.3 |
tentative | Section 6.1.3 |