specifically, the CN (common name) parameter, e.g.
ORGANIZER;CN=John Doe,Eng:mailto:jd@some.com
The RFC is vague on this, IMHO. It is very clear about property values of type TEXT, but for this parameter it just says "The parameter value is text". Anyways, the escaping specified for TEXT type doesn't seem complete for parameter values (e.g. ':' is not escaped).
thanks a lot!
Davka,
Yes, parameter values can be escaped by surrounding the value in double-quotes. Parameter values must be escaped if they contain any of the following characters:
; - semicolon
: - colon
, - comma
It is illegal to have a double quote "
character inside parameter values, so they should be deleted (or otherwise removed from the parameter value).
So, with your above example, the correct escaping is this:
ORGANIZER;CN="John Doe,Eng":mailto:jd@some.com
Note that once the first (unquoted) colon :
is encountered, parsing engines treat the rest as the property value. It is legal to use the colon :
character inside property values, so the colon in mailto:jd@some.com
doesn't need to be escaped.
We can break the line into it's parts:
ORGANIZER
- property name
;
- parameter delimiter
CN
- parameter name
=
- parameter value delimiter
"John Doe,Eng"
- parameter value
:
- property value delimiter
mailto:jd@some.com
- property value
Here's a quote from RFC 5545 Section 3.2 that explains when parameter values are surrounded with double-quotes, and tells us double-quotes are illegal in parameter values:
Property parameter values that contain
the COLON, SEMICOLON, or COMMA
character separators MUST be specified
as quoted-string text values. Property
parameter values MUST NOT contain the
DQUOTE character. The DQUOTE
character is used as a delimiter for
parameter values that contain
restricted characters or URI text.
For example:
DESCRIPTION;ALTREP="cid:part1.0001@example.org":The
Fall'98 Wild Wizards Conference - -
Las Vegas\, NV\, USA
It's important to note that parameters can technically contain multiple values. A comma is used to separate these multiple values:
(from Section 3.2.11 of RFC 5545:)
ATTENDEE;MEMBER="mailto:projectA@example.com","mailto:pr
ojectB@example.com":mailto:janedoe@example.com
Not all iCalendar engines will accept multiple values on all parameters, but the following parameters SHOULD allow multiple values (according to the RFC):
- MEMBER
- DELEGATED-FROM
- DELEGATED-TO
Regards,
-Doug