The iCalendar Standard - .ics files

[Lyle Fairfield]

iCalendar is a standard (RFC 2445) for calendar data exchange.

I plan to transfer data from iCalendar files (extension .ics), to a
linked Outlook calendar table. While Outlook (2002) has an import
strand for this, it does not seem to work with the format I shall be
importing. iCalendar files are not comma delimited files.

My first inclination is to open the iCalendar file with low level DOS
commands, to parse its contents with Regular Expressions and to use
dynamic SQL strings to put the data into the Calendar file. I expect
this will be super fast and efficient, and, better still, entirely
under my control, that is: "Custom".

But, perhaps there is a better way? A search for "iCal" in this group
turned up nothing useful, only posts about special non-calendar uses of
the string.

[Tom van Stiphout]

Re: The iCalendar Standard - .ics files

On 19 Jan 2007 15:57:09 -0800, "Lyle Fairfield"
<lylefairfield@ aim.comwrote:

Why not write an OLEDB driver for this format? You could become
independently wealthy marketing it.

Perhaps you should have written "iCalendar is an obscure standard"
since nobody is supporting it.

Why try to beat "super fast and efficient"?

-Tom. :-)

>iCalendar is a standard (RFC 2445) for calendar data exchange.
>
>I plan to transfer data from iCalendar files (extension .ics), to a
>linked Outlook calendar table. While Outlook (2002) has an import
>strand for this, it does not seem to work with the format I shall be
>importing. iCalendar files are not comma delimited files.
>
>My first inclination is to open the iCalendar file with low level DOS
>commands, to parse its contents with Regular Expressions and to use
>dynamic SQL strings to put the data into the Calendar file. I expect
>this will be super fast and efficient, and, better still, entirely
>under my control, that is: "Custom".
>
>But, perhaps there is a better way? A search for "iCal" in this group
>turned up nothing useful, only posts about special non-calendar uses of
>the string.

[Lyle Fairfield]

Re: The iCalendar Standard - .ics files

Tom van Stiphout <no.spam.tom774 4@cox.netwrote in
news:jm63r2te9v fcdp79nn84dcngd mah961279@4ax.c om:

Why not write an OLEDB driver for this format?

Good idea! I'll check and see how tough that is, at least.

You could become independently wealthy marketing it.

Naah ... I have too much money (for me, probably not for anyone else) now.

Perhaps you should have written "iCalendar is an obscure standard"
since nobody is supporting it.

Google makes its calendar available as a file in three formats, viz, XML,
iCal and HTML. Mozilla's Lightning and Sunbird Calendars use the iCalendar
format. I've read but can't confirm that Apple uses this standard as well.
It's my plan to hack up a simple Google-Palm PIM synchronization using
Outlook as a pre-conduit and to have it under (my) program control. For
instance I may want to include 15 minute before warnings on my PIM, but
have entered them as 60 minute warnings in Google.

Why try to beat "super fast and efficient"?

There's no point in life if one is content with what is easily available.
When there's no crisis, I need to create one.

-Tom. :-)

Lyle :-) :-)

[Lyle Fairfield]

Re: The iCalendar Standard - .ics files

Lyle Fairfield wrote:

Mozilla's Lightning and Sunbird Calendars use the iCalendar
format.

I have learned that Lightning and Sunbird no longer use the iCalendar
format. They now use:

"SQLite, a small C library that implements a self-contained,
embeddable, zero-configuration SQL database engine"
(http://www.sqlite.org/),

and the calendar files are stored in one file, viz, storage.sdb.

An ADO provider has been written for this technology and is available
at:
http://luggle.com/~sean/Articles/sqlitePV.php.

I am in the process of downloading and testing this.

[Lyle Fairfield]

Re: The iCalendar Standard - .ics files


Lyle Fairfield wrote:

An ADO provider has been written for this technology and is available
at:
http://luggle.com/~sean/Articles/sqlitePV.php.
>
I am in the process of downloading and testing this.

I downloaded, installed and tested this. It all worked well, so far.
I'll abandon this thread unless someone expresses an interest.