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Applications calext JSON contacts vCard jCard This document defines how to convert contact information as defined in the JSContact specification from and to vCard.

Introduction

Motivation The JSContact format represents contact card information as an alternative to vCard and its JSON-based version named jCard . While new applications might adopt JSContact as their main format to exchange contact card data, they are likely to interoperate with services and clients that only support vCard/jCard. Similarly, existing contact data providers and consumers already using vCard/jCard might want to represent their data also according to the JSContact specification. For interoperability, this conversion needs to be standardized. To facilitate this, this document defines a standard how to convert contact information between the JSContact and vCard formats.

Scope and Caveats JSContact and vCard have a lot of semantics in common, however some differences must be outlined:

• The JSContact data model defines some contact information that doesn't have a direct mapping with vCard properties. In particular, unlike vCard, JSContact distinguishes between a single contact card, named Card, and a group of contact cards, named CardGroup.
• The properties that can be present multiple times in a vCard are represented through different collections in JSContact; mainly as maps, sometimes as lists, in some cases condensed in a single value.

Conventions Used in This Document The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in . In the following of this document, the vCard features, namely properties and parameters, are written in uppercase while the Card/CardGroup features are written in camel case wrapped in double quotes.

Extensions While translating vCard to JSContact, any vCard property that doesn't have a direct counterpart in JSContact MUST be converted into a property whose name is prefixed by "ietf.org:<RFC defining the extension>:" (e.g. "ietf.org:rfc6350:"). Any custom extension MAY be added and its name MUST be prefixed with a specific domain name to avoid conflict, e.g. "example.com:customprop". Likewise, while translating JSContact to vCard, a JSContact property that doesn't have a direct counterpart in vCard MUST be converted into a property whose name is prefixed with "X-" as specified in Section 6.10 of .

Translating vCard properties to JSContact This section contains the translaiton rules from vCard to Card/CardGroup. The vCard properties are grouped according to the categories as defined in . If a vCard represents a group of contacts, those vCard properties which don't have a counterpart in CardGroup are converted into related properties of the "CardGroup.card" object. In this case, the "uid" member of both the resulting CardGroup object and its "card" member MUST have the same value.

Common vCard Parameters The following mapping rules apply to parameters that are common to most of the vCard properties:

• The vCard specification defines the "work" and "home" values for the "TYPE" property, section 5.6. of to indicate the context in which the respective property should be used. These map to the JSContact "context" property as defined in Section 1.5.1 of . The "home" value corresponds to the "private" key. Property-specific mappings of TYPE values for the TEL and RELATED properties are defined in and .
• The PREF parameter is mapped to the "pref" property.
• The MEDIATYPE parameter is mapped to the "mediaType" property. As described in Section 5.7 of , the media type of a resource can be identified by its URI. For example, "image/gif" can be derived from the ".gif" extension of a GIF image URI. JSContact producers MAY provide the media type information even when it is not specified in the vCard.
• The ALTID and LANGUAGE parameters are used in combination for associating the language-dependent alternatives with a given property. Such alternatives are represented by using the "localizations" map: the key in the "localizations" object is the LANGUAGE value, the key in the PatchObject points the JSContact property that corresponds to the vCard property. The value of the PatchObject entry contains the vCard property value.

Unmapped JSContact Information The rules to generate a map key of type Id as well as "preferredContactMethod" properties are out of the scope of this document.

General Properties

BEGIN and END The BEGIN and END properties don't have a direct match with a JSContact feature.

SOURCE A SOURCE property is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "directorySource" and the "resource" member is the SOURCE value. The PREF and MEDIATYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

SOURCE mapping example

KIND The KIND property is mapped to the "kind" member (). Allowed values are those described in Section 6.1.4 of and extended with the values declared in and . The value "group" is reserved for a CardGroup instance.

KIND mapping example

XML The XML property doesn't have a direct match with a JSContact feature.

Identification Properties

FN All the FN instances are represented through the "fullName" member (). The presence of multiple instances is implicitly associated with the full name translations in various languages regardless of the presence of the ALTID parameter. Each translation is mapped according to the rules as defined in . If the vCard represents a group of contacts, implementers MAY convert the FN property into either "CardGroup.card.fullName" or "CardGroup.name" or both properties.

N and NICKNAME The N instances are converted into equivalent items of the "components" array of the "name" property (): the N components are transformed into related "NameComponent" objects as presented in . Name components SHOULD be ordered such that their values joined by whitespace produce a valid full name of this entity. Each NICKNAME instance is mapped to an item of "nickNames" array. N components mapping

N component	"type" value
Honorific Prefixes	prefix
Given Names	personal
Family Names	surname
Additional Names	additional
Honorific Suffixes	suffix

FN, N, NICKNAME mapping example

PHOTO A PHOTO property is represented as an entry of the "photos" map (). The entry value is a "File" object whose "href" member is the PHOTO value. The PREF and MEDIATYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

PHOTO mapping example

BDAY, BIRTHPLACE, DEATHDATE, DEATHPLACE, ANNIVERSARY The BDAY and ANNIVERSARY properties and the extensions BIRTHPLACE, DEATHDATE, DEATHPLACE described in are represented as "Anniversary" objects included in the "anniversaries" map ():

• BDAY and BIRTHPLACE are mapped to "date" and "place" where "type" is set to "birth";
• DEATHDATE and DEATHPLACE are mapped to "date" and "place" where "type" is set to "death";
• ANNIVERSARY is mapped to "date" where "type" is empty and "label" is set to a value describing in detail the kind of anniversary (e.g. "marriage date" for the wedding anniversary).

Both birth and death places are represented as instances of the "Address" object. The BIRTHPLACE and DEATHPLACE properties that are represented as geo URIs are converted into "Address" instances including only the "coordinates" member. If the URI value is not a geo URI, the place is ignored. The ALTID and LANGUAGE parameters of both BIRTHPLACE and DEATHPLACE properties are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

BDAY, BIRTHPLACE, DEATHDATE, DEATHPLACE, ANNIVERSARY mapping example

GENDER The GENDER property is a single structured value with two optional components: the biological sex and the gender information. The former is represented as an enumerated value, while the latter as a free-form text. As opposed to such a representation, the JSContact specification includes the "SpeakToAs" object just to represent how to address, speak to or refer to the contact. In particular, some pre-defined values are allowed for the "grammaticalGender" member. For the reasons stated above, the GENDER property doesn't have a direct match with the "SpeakToAs" object. However, on the assumption that the GENDER property doesn't store the actual biological sex of the contact, implementations MAY use the conversion rules shown in and . GENDER to SpeakToAs conversion

GENDER value	"SpeakToAs.grammaticalGender" value
M	male
F	female
N	neuter
O	animate
U	SpeakToAs = null

SpeakToAs to GENDER conversion

"SpeakToAs.grammaticalGender" value	GENDER value
male	M
female	F
neuter	N
animate	O
inanimate	N;inanimate

Delivery Addressing Properties

ADR An ADR property is represented as an entry of the "addresses" map (). The entry value is an "Address" object. The ADR components are transformed into the "Address" members as presented in and . The "street address" and "extended address" ADR components MAY be converted into either a single StreetComponent item or a combination of StreetComponent items. ADR components vs. Address members mapping

ADR component	Address member
locality	locality
region	region
postal code	postcode
country name	country

ADR components vs. StreetComponent items mapping

ADR component	Single StreetComponent item	Combination of StreetComponent items
post office box	postOfficeBox
extended address	extension	extension, building, floor, room, apartment
street address	name	name, number, direction

The LABEL parameter is converted into the "fullAddress" member. The GEO parameter is converted into the "coordinates" member. The TZ parameter is converted into the "timeZone" member. The CC parameter as defined in is converted into the "countryCode" member. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in . The ALTID and LANGUAGE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in . Each possible language-dependent alternative is represented as an entry of the PatchObject map where the key references the "fullAddress" member.

ADR mapping example

Communications Properties

TEL A TEL property is represented as an entry of the "phones" map (). The entry value is a "Phone" object. The TEL-specific values of the TYPE parameter are mapped to the "features" map keys. The values that don't match a key are represented as comma-separated values of the "label" member. The "phone" member is set to the TEL value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

TEL mapping example

EMAIL An EMAIL property is represented as an entry of the "emails" map (). The entry value is an "EmailAddress" object. The "email" member is set to the EMAIL value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

EMAIL mapping example

IMPP An IMPP property is represented as an entry of the "onlineServices" map (). The entry value is a "OnlineService" object and the "uri" member is the IMPP value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

IMPP mapping example

LANG A LANG property is represented as an entry of the "preferredContactLanguages" map (). The entry keys correspond to the language tags, the corresponding entry values are arrays of "ContactLanguage" objects. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in . If both PREF and TYPE parameters are missing, the array of "ContactLanguage" objects MUST be empty.

LANG mapping example

Geographical Properties The GEO and TZ properties are not directly mapped to topmost Card members because the same information is represented through equivalent "Address" members. The ALTID parameter is used for associating both GEO and TZ properties with the related address information. When the ALTID parameter is missing, the matched members SHOULD be included in the first "Address" object.

Time Zone Representation As specified in Section 6.5.1 of , the time zone information can be represented as a time zone name, as a UTC offset or as a URI.

• If the TZ value is defined in the IANA timezone database, it is directly matched by the "timeZone" member in JSContact.
• An UTC offset MUST be converted into the related "Etc/GMT" time zone (e.g. the value "-0500" converts to "Etc/GMT+5"). If the UTC offset value contains minutes information or is not an IANA timezone name, it requires special handling.
• Since there is no URI scheme defined for time zones , any implementation that does use some a custom URI for a time zone is not interoperable anyway. In this case, if the URI corresponds to an IANA time zone , this latter SHOULD be used. Otherwise, the URI value is dumped into a string.

Organizational Properties

TITLE and ROLE Both TITLE and ROLE properties are represented as entries of the "titles" map (). The entry value is a "Title" object whose "title" member includes information about the title or role. The rules to set the "organization" member are out of the scope of this document. The ALTID and LANGUAGE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

TITLE and ROLE mapping example

LOGO A LOGO property is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "logo" and the "resource" member is the LOGO value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

LOGO mapping example

ORG An ORG property is represented as an entry of the "organizations" map (). The entry value is an "Organization" object whose "name" member contains the organizational name and the "units" member contains the organizational units. The ALTID and LANGUAGE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

ORG mapping example

MEMBER According to the JSContact specification, a group of contact cards is represented through a CardGroup (). The uids of the contact cards composing the group are included in the "members" map. In this case, the PREF parameter has not a JSContact counterpart; however, the implementers MAY insert the map entries by order of preference.

Group example

Only if the GROUP contains properties that don't have a mapping to CardGroup properties, then the CardGroup.card property MAY contain the optional Card object of this group.

card member of CardGroup object

RELATED All the RELATED instances are converted into the "relatedTo" map (): an entry for each entity the entity described by the Card is associated with. The map keys are the "uid" values of the associated cards. Each map value is a "Relation" object including only the "relation" member represented as a set of the RELATED-specific values of the TYPE parameter as defined in Section 6.6.6 of . If the relation type is unspecified, the "relation" member MUST be empty.

RELATED mapping example

CONTACT-URI A CONTACT-URI property as defined in is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "contact" and the "resource" member is the CONTACT-URI value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

CONTACT-URI mapping example

Personal Information Properties The LEVEL parameter as defined in is directly mapped to the "level" property of the "PersonalInformation" type apart from when LEVEL is used in the EXPERTISE property; in this case, the values are converted as in the following:

• "beginner" is converted into "low";
• "average" is converted into "medium";
• "expert" is converted into "high".

EXPERTISE An EXPERTISE property as defined in is represented as a "PersonalInformation" object in the "personalInfo" map (). The "type" member is set to "expertise". The INDEX parameter is represented as the index of the expertise among the declared expertises.

EXPERTISE mapping example

HOBBY A HOBBY property as defined in is represented as a "PersonalInformation" object in the "personalInfo" map (). The "type" member is set to "hobby". The INDEX parameter is represented as the index of the hobby among the declared hobbies.

HOBBY mapping example

INTEREST An INTEREST property as defined in is represented as a "PersonalInformation" object in the "personalInfo" map (). The "type" member is set to "interest". The INDEX parameter is represented as the index of the interest among the declared interests.

INTEREST mapping example

ORG-DIRECTORY An ORG-DIRECTORY property as defined in is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "directory" and the "resource" member is the ORG-DIRECTORY value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in . The INDEX parameter is represented as the index of the directory among the online resources with the "directory" type.

ORG-DIRECTORY mapping example

Explanatory Properties

CATEGORIES A CATEGORIES property is converted into a set of entries of the "categories" map (). The keys are the comma-separated text values of the CATEGORIES property. In this case, the PREF parameter has not a JSContact counterpart; however, implementers MAY use a map preserving the order of insertion and the map entries can be inserted by order of preference.

CATEGORIES mapping example

CREATED The CREATED property is transformed into the "created" member ().

CREATED mapping example

LOCALE A LOCALE property is mapped to the "locale" property ().

LOCALE mapping example

NOTE A NOTE property is mapped to the "notes" property (). All the NOTE instances are condensed into a single note and separated by newline. The ALTID and LANGUAGE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

NOTE mapping example

PRODID The PRODID property is converted into the "prodId" member ().

PRODID mapping example

REV The REV property is transformed into the "updated" member ().

REV mapping example

SOUND A SOUND property is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "audio" and the "resource" member is the SOUND value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

SOUND mapping example

UID The UID property corresponds to the "uid" property () in both Card and CardGroup.

UID mapping example

CLIENTPIDMAP and PID Parameter The CLIENTPIDMAP property and the PDI parameter don't have a direct match with a Card feature.

URL An URL property is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "uri" and the "resource" member is the URL value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

URL mapping example

VERSION The VERSION property doesn't have a direct match with a JSContact feature.

Security Properties

KEY A KEY property is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "publicKey" and the "resource" member is the KEY value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

KEY mapping example

Calendar Properties

FBURL An FBURL property is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "freeBusy" and the "resource" member is the FBURL value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

FBURL mapping example

CALADRURI A CALADRURI property is represented as an entry of the "scheduling" map (). The entry value is a "Scheduling" object whose "sendTo" map includes an entry whose key is set to "imip" and value is set to the CALADRURI value. The PREF parameter is mapped according to the rules as defined in .

CALADRURI mapping example

CALURI A CALURI property is represented as an entry of the "resources" map (). The entry value is a "Resource" object whose "type" member is set to "calendar" and the "resource" member is the CALURI value. The PREF and TYPE parameters are mapped according to the rules as defined in .

CALURI mapping example

vCard Unmatched Properties The unmatched vCard properties MAY be converted into JSContact properties whose name contains the prefix "ietf.org:rfc6350:" followed by property name in uppercase (i.e. ietf.org:rfc6350:CLIENTPIDMAP").

Card Required Properties While converting a vCard into a Card/CardGroup, only the topmost "uid" member is mandatory. Implementers are REQUIRED to set it when it is missing.

Translating JSContact properties to vCard In most of the cases, the rules about the translation from Card/CardGroup to vCard can be derived by reversing the rules presented in . The remaining cases are treated in the following of this section.

Id Where a map key is of type Id, implementers are free to either ignore it or preserve it as a vCard information (e.g. a vCard parameter).

Localizations Each PatchObject entry value of each "localizations" entry is converted into a instance of the vCard property matching the JSContact member referenced by the PatchObject entry key. The LANGUAGE parameter of such alternative MUST be set to the value of the given "localizations" entry. The LANGUAGE parameter of a vCard property presenting, at least, a language-dependent alternative MUST be set to the value of the JSContact "language" property if it is valued. Implementers MAY set the ALTID parameter to group language-based alternatives of the same value. Note also that the components of some vCard values and their language-dependent alternatives are split into different JSContact values. For example, the "name" and "units" values for a given language must be grouped to make a single ORG value where components are separated by ";".

Date and Time Representations The JSContact spec defines the "UTCDateTime" type to represent "date-time" format with further restrictions. This means that the matched vCard format for a "UTCDateTime" value MUST be one of the formats shown in Section 4.3.5 of (i.e. "19961022T140000Z"). In addition to such format, the "date" member of the "Anniversary" type allows to specify both dates without the time and partial dates. In such cases, the corresponding vCard format is that defined in Section 4.3.1.

Time Zone The time zone name as represented by the "timeZone" property is mapped to the TZ parameter. Implementers MAY map an "Etc/GMT" time zone either preserving the time zone name or converting it into a UTC offset.

JSContact Types Matching Multiple vCard Properties

Title The "titles" property contains information about the job, the position or the role of the entity the card represents. In vCard, such information is split into the TITLE and the ROLE properties. This specification defines TITLE as the default target property when converting the "titles" property.

Resource The "resources" property includes resources that are usually represented through different vCard properties. The matched vCard property of a "Resource" object can be derived from the value of its "type" member. Any resource included in the "resources" map that doesn't match a vCard property MAY be converted into a vCard extended property.

CardGroup A CardGroup object is converted into a vCard by merging its properties with the properties of "CardGroup.card" object. If the "CardGroup.card.fullName" property exists, it MUST be used to set the FN value.

Card Unmatched Properties Both the "preferredContactMethod" and "created" members don't match any vCard property. Implementers MAY represent them as vCard extended properties.

vCard Required Properties While converting a Card/CardGroup into a vCard, only the FN property is required. Since both the "Card.fullName" and "CardGroup.name" properties are optional, implementers are REQUIRED to generate an FN value when it is missing.

IANA Considerations This document has no actions for IANA.

Implementation Status NOTE: Please remove this section and the reference to RFC 7942 prior to publication as an RFC. This section records the status of known implementations of the protocol as defined in this specification at the time of posting of this Internet-Draft, and is based on a proposal described in . The description of implementations in this section is intended to assist the IETF in its decision processes in progressing drafts to RFCs. Please note that the listing of any individual implementation here does not imply endorsement by the IETF. Furthermore, no effort has been spent to verify the information presented here that was supplied by IETF contributors. This is not intended as, and must not be construed to be, a catalog of available implementations or their features. Readers are advised to note that other implementations may exist. According to RFC 7942, "this will allow reviewers and working groups to assign due considerationto documents that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented protocols more mature. It is up to the individual working groups to use this information as they see fit".

CNR

• Responsible Organization: National Research Council (CNR) of Italy
• Location: https://github.com/consiglionazionaledellericerche/jscontact-tools
• Description: This implementation includes tools for JSContact creation, validation, serialization/deserialization, and conversion from vCard, xCard and jCard.
• Level of Maturity: This is an "alpha" test implementation.
• Coverage: This implementation includes all of the features described in this specification.
• Contact Information: Mario Loffredo, mario.loffredo@iit.cnr.it

Security Considerations This document doesn't present any security consideration.

References Normative References Informative References

Preserving vCard property groups The vCard format allows to define groups of properties in a vCard. To do so, implementation must prefix the content line of a property with a group identifier, as defined in . There is no equivalent in JSContact, and it is up to further discussion in the working group if and how property groups should be defined. This section contains one possible mapping of vCard property groups in order to preserve them during conversion between the two formats.

propertyGroups Property Type: String[PropertyGroup] (optional). This combines properties of a JSContact object into named groups. A client implementation can then display these properties together, such as group that combines an organization, address and photo property, shown together with a custom group label. The object keys MUST only contain ASCII alphanumeric characters (A-Za-z0-9) and hyphen (-) and MUST NOT be an empty string. A key identifies a group within a JSContact object but does not have any additional purpose. Specifically, the key is not meant to provide a human-readable name of the group. For this, use the PropertyGroup label property. A PropertyGroup object has the following properties:

• @type: String (mandatory). Specifies the type of this object. This MUST be PropertyGroup.
• label: String (optional). A human-readable label or name of this property group.
• members: String[Boolean] (optional). The set of property members of this property group. It MUST contain at least one member to be valid. The keys are the path to a property, encoded as a JSON pointer where the leading / character is implicit (a pointer implicitly starts at the top-level of the Card or CardGroup). Any path that points at or into the propertyGroups property MUST be ignored. The values of the set MUST be true.