About VObject

VObject is intended to be a full-featured Python package for parsing and generating vCard and vCalendar files. It was originally developed in concert with the Open Source Application Foundation's Chandler project by Jeffrey Harris. Many thanks to all the contributors for their dedication and support. The project is currently being maintained by the py-vobject organization on GitHub.

Currently, iCalendar files are supported and well tested. vCard 3.0 files are supported, and all data should be imported, but only a few components are understood in a sophisticated way. The Calendar Server team has added VAVAILABILITY support to VObject's iCalendar parsing. Please report bugs and issues directly on GitHub.

VObject is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.

Useful scripts included with VObject:

ics_diff: order is irrelevant in iCalendar files, return a diff of meaningful changes between icalendar files
change_tz: Take an iCalendar file with events in the wrong timezone, change all events or just UTC events into one of the timezones PyICU supports. Requires PyICU.

Installation

To install with pip, run:

pip install vobject

Or download the package and run:

python setup.py install

VObject requires Python 2.7 or higher, along with the dateutil and six packages.

Running tests

To run all tests, use:

python tests/tests.py

Usage

iCalendar

Creating iCalendar objects

VObject has a basic datastructure for working with iCalendar-like syntaxes. Additionally, it defines specialized behaviors for many of the commonly used iCalendar objects.

To create an object that already has a behavior defined, run:

>>> import vobject
>>> cal = vobject.newFromBehavior('vcalendar')
>>> cal.behavior
<class 'vobject.icalendar.VCalendar2_0'>

Convenience functions exist to create iCalendar and vCard objects:

>>> cal = vobject.iCalendar()
>>> cal.behavior
<class 'vobject.icalendar.VCalendar2_0'>
>>> card = vobject.vCard()
>>> card.behavior
<class 'vobject.vcard.VCard3_0'>

Once you have an object, you can use the add method to create children:

>>> cal.add('vevent')
<VEVENT| []>
>>> cal.vevent.add('summary').value = "This is a note"
>>> cal.prettyPrint()
 VCALENDAR
    VEVENT
       SUMMARY: This is a note

Note that summary is a little different from vevent, it's a ContentLine, not a Component. It can't have children, and it has a special value attribute.

ContentLines can also have parameters. They can be accessed with regular attribute names with _param appended:

>>> cal.vevent.summary.x_random_param = 'Random parameter'
>>> cal.prettyPrint()
 VCALENDAR
    VEVENT
       SUMMARY: This is a note
       params for  SUMMARY:
          X-RANDOM ['Random parameter']

There are a few things to note about this example

The underscore in x_random is converted to a dash (dashes are legal in iCalendar, underscores legal in Python)
X-RANDOM's value is a list.

If you want to access the full list of parameters, not just the first, use <paramname>_paramlist:

>>> cal.vevent.summary.x_random_paramlist
['Random parameter']
>>> cal.vevent.summary.x_random_paramlist.append('Other param')
>>> cal.vevent.summary
<SUMMARY{'X-RANDOM': ['Random parameter', 'Other param']}This is a note>

Similar to parameters, If you want to access more than just the first child of a Component, you can access the full list of children of a given name by appending _list to the attribute name:

>>> cal.add('vevent').add('summary').value = "Second VEVENT"
>>> for ev in cal.vevent_list:
...     print ev.summary.value
This is a note
Second VEVENT

The interaction between the del operator and the hiding of the underlying list is a little tricky, both del cal.vevent and del cal.vevent_list delete all vevent children:

>>> first_ev = cal.vevent
>>> del cal.vevent
>>> cal
<VCALENDAR| []>
>>> cal.vevent = first_ev

VObject understands Python's datetime module and tzinfo classes.

>>> import datetime
>>> utc = vobject.icalendar.utc
>>> start = cal.vevent.add('dtstart')
>>> start.value = datetime.datetime(2006, 2, 16, tzinfo = utc)
>>> first_ev.prettyPrint()
     VEVENT
        DTSTART: 2006-02-16 00:00:00+00:00
        SUMMARY: This is a note
        params for  SUMMARY:
           X-RANDOM ['Random parameter', 'Other param']

Components and ContentLines have serialize methods:

>>> cal.vevent.add('uid').value = 'Sample UID'
>>> icalstream = cal.serialize()
>>> print icalstream
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//PYVOBJECT//NONSGML Version 1//EN
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:Sample UID
DTSTART:20060216T000000Z
SUMMARY;X-RANDOM=Random parameter,Other param:This is a note
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Observe that serializing adds missing required lines like version and prodid. A random UID would be generated, too, if one didn't exist.

If dtstart's tzinfo had been something other than UTC, an appropriate vtimezone would be created for it.

Parsing iCalendar objects

To parse one top level component from an existing iCalendar stream or string, use the readOne function:

>>> parsedCal = vobject.readOne(icalstream)
>>> parsedCal.vevent.dtstart.value
datetime.datetime(2006, 2, 16, 0, 0, tzinfo=tzutc())

Similarly, readComponents is a generator yielding one top level component at a time from a stream or string.

>>> vobject.readComponents(icalstream).next().vevent.dtstart.value
datetime.datetime(2006, 2, 16, 0, 0, tzinfo=tzutc())

More examples can be found in source code doctests.

vCards

Creating vCard objects

Making vCards proceeds in much the same way. Note that the 'FN' attribute is required.

>>> j = vobject.vCard()
>>> j.add('n')
 <N{}    >
>>> j.n.value = vobject.vcard.Name( family='Harris', given='Jeffrey' )
>>> j.add('fn')
 <FN{}>
>>> j.fn.value ='Jeffrey Harris'
>>> j.add('email')
 <EMAIL{}>
>>> j.email.value = 'jeffrey@osafoundation.org'
>>> j.email.type_param = 'INTERNET'
>>> j.prettyPrint()
 VCARD
    EMAIL: jeffrey@osafoundation.org
    params for  EMAIL:
       TYPE ['INTERNET']
    FN: Jeffrey Harris
    N:  Jeffrey  Harris

serializing will add any required computable attributes (like 'VERSION')

>>> j.serialize()
'BEGIN:VCARD\r\nVERSION:3.0\r\nEMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:jeffrey@osafoundation.org\r\nFN:Jeffrey Harris\r\nN:Harris;Jeffrey;;;\r\nEND:VCARD\r\n'
>>> j.prettyPrint()
 VCARD
    VERSION: 3.0
    EMAIL: jeffrey@osafoundation.org
    params for  EMAIL:
       TYPE ['INTERNET']
    FN: Jeffrey Harris
    N:  Jeffrey  Harris

Parsing vCard objects

>>> s = """
... BEGIN:VCARD
... VERSION:3.0
... EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:jeffrey@osafoundation.org
... FN:Jeffrey Harris
... N:Harris;Jeffrey;;;
... END:VCARD
... """
>>> v = vobject.readOne( s )
>>> v.prettyPrint()
 VCARD
    VERSION: 3.0
    EMAIL: jeffrey@osafoundation.org
    params for  EMAIL:
       TYPE [u'INTERNET']
    FN: Jeffrey Harris
    N:  Jeffrey  Harris
>>> v.n.value.family
u'Harris'

Multi-Value Properties

Multi-value properties are properties of a component that can contain multiple values. An easy example would be email. A vCard can contain both someone's work email address and their home email address. When dealing with multi-value properties, the getting and setting of values happens slightly differentely than singleton properties.

Adding Multi-Value Properties

You should add multi-value properties by creating multiple ContentLines and giving each a value. You can also set the property list explicitly, but this is not advised.

>>> v = vobject.vCard()
>>> v.add('fn').value = "Jeffery Harris"
>>> v.add('email').value = 'jeffrey@osafoundation.org'
>>> v.add('email').value = 'jeffrey@example.com'
>>> print v.email_list
 [<EMAIL{}jeffrey@osafoundation.org>, <EMAIL{}jeffery@example.com>]
>>> print v.serialize()
 BEGIN:VCARD
 VERSION:3.0
 EMAIL:jeffrey@osafoundation.org
 EMAIL:jeffery@example.com
 FN:Jeffery Harris
 END:VCARD

Accessing Multi-Value Properties

You can access multi-value entries either by grabbing the relevent entry in the `contents` dictionary or by directly accessing the attribute and appending _list to the property name.

>>> s = """
... BEGIN:VCARD
... VERSION:3.0
... EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:jeffrey@osafoundation.org
... FN:Jeffrey Harris
... N:Harris;Jeffrey;;;
... TEL;TYPE=WORK,VOICE:(111) 555-1212
... TEL;TYPE=HOME,VOICE:(404) 555-1212
... END:VCARD
... """
>>> v = vobject.readOne( s )
>>> for tel in v.contents['tel']:
...     print tel
 <TEL{u'TYPE': [u'WORK', u'VOICE']}(111) 555-1212>
 <TEL{u'TYPE': [u'HOME', u'VOICE']}(404) 555-1212>
>>> for tel in v.contents['tel']:
...     print tel.value
 (111) 555-1212
 (404) 555-1212
>>> v.tel_list
 [<TEL{'TYPE': ['WORK', 'VOICE']}(111) 555-1212>,
  <TEL{'TYPE': ['HOME', 'VOICE']}(404) 555-1212>]

Release History

7 July 2018

vobject 0.9.6 released (view).

To install, use pip install vobject, or download the archive and untar, run python setup.py install. Tests can be run via python setup.py test. dateutil and six are required. Python 2.7 or higher is required.

Release Notes

Correctly order calendar properties before calendar components
Correctly serialize timestamp values (i.e. `REV`)
Pass correct formatting string to logger
RRULE: Fix floating UNTIL with dateutil > 2.6.1
Encode params if necessary in serialization
Ignore escaped semi-colons in UNTIL value
RRULE: Fix VTODO without DTSTART
Fixed regexp for VCF Version 2.1
repr() changed for datetime.timedelta in python 3.7

29 June 2017

vobject 0.9.5 released (view).

Release Notes

Make ics_diff.py work with Python 3
Huge changes to text encoding for Python 2/3 compatibility
Autogenerate DTSTAMP if not provided
Fix getrruleset() for Python 3 and in the case that addRDate=True
Update vCard property validation to match specifications
Handle offset-naive and offset-aware datetimes in recurrence rules
Improved documentation for multi-value properties

22 January 2017

vobject 0.9.4.1 released (view).

Release Notes

Pickling/deepcopy hotfix

20 January 2017

vobject 0.9.4 released (view).

Release Notes

Improved PEP8 compliance
Improved Python 3 compatibility
Improved encoding/decoding
Correct handling of pytz timezones

26 August 2016

vobject 0.9.3 released (view).

Release Notes

Fixed use of doc in setup.py for -OO mode
Added python3 compatibility for base64 encoding
Fixed ORG fields with multiple components
Handle pytz timezones in iCalendar serialization
Use logging instead of printing to stdout

13 March 2016

vobject 0.9.2 released (view).

Release Notes

Better line folding for utf-8 strings
Convert unicode to utf-8 to be StringIO compatible

16 February 2016

vobject 0.9.1 released (view).

Release Notes

Removed lock on dateutil version (>=2.4.0 now works)

3 February 2016

vobject 0.9.0 released (view).

To install, use pip install vobject, or download the archive and untar, run python setup.py install. Tests can be run via python setup.py test. dateutil 2.4.0 and six are required. Python 2.7 or higher is now required.

Release Notes

Python 3 compatible
Updated version of dateutil (2.4.0)
More comprehensive unit tests available in tests.py
Performance improvements in iteration
Test files are included in PyPI download package

28 January 2016

vobject 0.8.2 released (view).

To install, use pip install vobject, or download the archive and untar, run python setup.py install. Tests can be run via python setup.py test. dateutil 1.1 or later is required. Python 2.4 is also required.

Release Notes

Removed unnecessary ez_setup call from setup.py

27 February 2009

vobject 0.8.1c released (SVN revision 217).

To install, use easy_install, or download the archive and untar, run python setup.py install. Tests can be run via python setup.py test. dateutil 1.1 or later is required. Python 2.4 is also required.

Release Notes

Tweaked change_tz.py to keep it 2.4 compatible

12 January 2009

vobject 0.8.1b released (SVN revision 216).

Release Notes

Change behavior when import a VCALENDAR or VCARD with an older or absent VERSION line, now the most recent behavior (i.e., VCARD 3.0 and iCalendar, VCALENDAR 2.0) is used

29 December 2008

vobject 0.8.0 released (SVN revision 213).

Release Notes

Changed license to Apache 2.0 from Apache 1.1
Fixed a major performance bug in backslash decoding large text bodies
Added workaround for strange Apple Address Book parsing of vcard PHOTO, don't wrap PHOTO by default. To disable this behavior, set vobject.vcard.wacky_apple_photo_serialize to False.

25 July 2008

vobject 0.7.1 released (SVN revision 208).

Release Notes

Add change_tz script for converting timezones in iCalendar files

16 July 2008

vobject 0.7.0 released (SVN revision 206).

Release Notes

Allow Outlook's technically illegal use of commas in TZIDs
Added introspection help for IPython so tab completion works with vobject's custom getattr
Made vobjects pickle-able
Added tolerance for the escaped semi-colons in RRULEs a Ruby iCalendar library generates
Fixed Bug 12245, setting an rrule from a dateutil instance missed BYMONTHDAY when the number used is negative

30 May 2008

vobject 0.6.6 released (SVN revision 201).

Release Notes

Fixed bug 12120, unicode TZIDs were failing to parse.

28 May 2008

vobject 0.6.5 released (SVN revision 200).