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art calext addressbook contacts cards vCard JSContact This document defines a set of new properties for vCard and extends the use of existing ones. Their primary purpose is to align the same set of features between the JSContact and vCard formats, but the new definitions also aim to be useful within just the vCard format. This document updates RFC 6350 ("vCard Format Specification").

Introduction The JSContact format aims to be an alternative to the vCard format for representation of contact and address book data. As such, it introduces new semantics that are not covered in the current definition of vCard and its various extensions. Converting contact data between the two formats is defined in with the goal of not losing any semantics during conversion. To achieve this, this document defines a new set of properties for vCard and extends existing definitions.

Notational Conventions 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 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

ABNF Notations The ABNF definitions in this document use the notations of . ABNF rules not defined in this document are defined in either (such as the ABNF for CRLF, WSP, DQUOTE, VCHAR, ALPHA, and DIGIT) or .

Updated Properties

ADR This specification modifies the definition of the ADR property. It extends its structured value with additional address components to better support the variety of international addresses. It separates the address parts, which currently are typically combined in street address component values, into distinct components. Implementations SHOULD write a combined value of these components in the street address component for backwards compatibility, but they SHOULD ignore the street component during reads if the ADR property value contains any of the new components. The following change is made to the first paragraph under "Special note", as originally specified in . The remaining paragraphs of that section in the original specification still apply. Special note: The structured type value consists of a sequence of address components. The component values MUST be specified in their corresponding position. The structured type value corresponds, in sequence, to the

• post office box;
• extended address (e.g., apartment or suite number);
• street address;
• locality (e.g., city);
• region (e.g., state or province);
• postal code;
• country name (full name in the language specified in );
• room, suite number, or identifier;
• apartment number, extension designation, or box number;
• building floor or level;
• street number;
• street name;
• building, tower, or condominium;
• block name or number;
• subdistrict;
• district;
• landmark or another publicly known prominent feature that can substitute the street name and number (e.g., "White House" and "Taj Mahal"); and
• the cardinal direction or quadrant (e.g., "north").

The following change is made to the definition of "ADR-value" under "ABNF", as originally specified in . ABNF The following change is made under "Example", as originally specified in . Example: In this example, the post office box and the extended address components are absent. The street number and name are both added as separate components and are combined in the street component for backwards compatibility.

N This specification modifies the definition of the N property. It extends its structured value with additional name components to better support international names and generation markers. In doing so, this also facilitates formatting N property values using the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) Person Name formatting standard. One new component is for secondary surnames, because in some cultures, such secondary surname kinds are used to indicate the paternal and maternal family names or generational names indicating father or grandfather. Another new component indicates a generation ("II", "XVI") or parental relation ("Jr.", "Sr."). Currently, implementations typically place secondary surnames in the family name component and generational markers in the honorific suffixes component. For backwards compatibility, implementations SHOULD add such values to both the newly defined components and their backwards-compatible counterpart. Reading N property values, implementations SHOULD ignore any value in the backwards-compatible component if an equal value is set in the new component accordingly. For example, a "Jr." that occurs in both honorific suffixes and generation should only be handled as a generational marker. The following change is made to the first paragraph under "Special note", as originally specified in . The remaining paragraphs of that section in the original specification still apply. Special note: The structured property value corresponds, in sequence, to the

• family names (also known as surnames);
• given names;
• additional names;
• honorific prefixes;
• honorific suffixes;
• secondary surname; and
• generation.

The following change is made under "ABNF", as originally specified in . ABNF The following change is made under "Examples", as originally specified in . Examples No change is required for the definition of the SORT-AS parameter, but the new components also apply for use with this parameter.

New Properties

CREATED

Property name:

CREATED

Purpose:

Defines the date and time when the vCard was created.

Value type:

A single timestamp value.

Cardinality:

*1

Property parameters:

VALUE

Description:

This is the timestamp when the vCard was created. Copying the vCard across systems does not count as a new creation nor a new revision. Instead, the timestamp value typically stays unchanged for the existence of the vCard.

Format definition:

Example(s):

GRAMGENDER

Property name:

GRAMGENDER

Purpose:

Defines which grammatical gender to use in salutations and other grammatical constructs.

Value type:

A single text value that is restricted to an enumerated list of allowed values.

Cardinality:

*

Property parameters:

LANGUAGE

Description:

This property defines the grammatical gender that the contact prefers to be addressed by or referred to as in written or spoken form. For example, the German language distinguishes by grammatical gender in salutations such as "Sehr geehrte" (feminine) and "Sehr geehrter" (masculine). Multiple occurrences of this property MUST be distinguished by the LANGUAGE parameter.

Format definition:

Example(s):

LANGUAGE

Property name:

LANGUAGE

Purpose:

Defines the default language that human-readable text values in this vCard are assumed to be written in.

Value type:

A single Language-Tag value as defined in .

Cardinality:

*1

Property parameters:

The LANGUAGE parameter MUST NOT be assigned to this property.

Description:

This property defines the language that property values of type TEXT are assumed to be written in for this vCard. If a vCard property includes the LANGUAGE parameter, then the parameter value has higher precedence than the LANGUAGE property value.

Format definition:

Example(s):

PRONOUNS

Property name:

PRONOUNS

Purpose:

Defines the pronouns that shall be used to refer to the entity represented by this vCard.

Value type:

A single text value.

Cardinality:

*

Property parameters:

LANGUAGE, PREF, TYPE, ALTID

Description:

This property contains the pronouns that the contact chooses to use for themselves. The value is free-form text. These pronouns shall be used when addressing or referring to the contact. Multiple occurrences of this property MAY define pronouns for multiple languages, preferences, and contexts. Multiple pronouns in the same language SHOULD use the PREF parameter; otherwise, the order of preference is implementation-specific.

Format definition:

Example(s):

SOCIALPROFILE

Property name:

SOCIALPROFILE

Purpose:

Specifies the URI or username for social media profiles associated with the object the vCard represents.

Value type:

A single URI or TEXT value. The default value type is URI.

Cardinality:

*

Property parameters:

The SERVICE-TYPE parameter MUST be assigned to this property if the value type is TEXT, and it MAY be assigned if the value type is URI. In either case, it MUST NOT be assigned more than once.

Description:

Several vCard address book implementations currently use an experimental X-SOCIALPROFILE property to store social media profiles for contacts. This specification provides an IANA-registered property for the same purpose. In addition to the typical use of this property with URI values, it also allows setting usernames for social media services as free-text TEXT values, in which case the service name MUST be provided as a parameter. Names MUST be considered equal if they match case-insensitively.

Format definition:

Example(s):

New Parameters

AUTHOR

Parameter name:

AUTHOR

Purpose:

Identifies the author of the associated property value.

Description:

This parameter MAY be set on any property where conveying authorship is desired. It identifies the author as a URI . Since every valid URI includes the COLON (U+003A) character, the parameter value MUST be quoted. As an alternative or in addition to this parameter, the AUTHOR-NAME parameter allows naming an author as a free-text value (see ).

Format definition:

Example(s):

AUTHOR-NAME

Parameter name:

AUTHOR-NAME

Purpose:

Names the author of the associated property value.

Description:

This parameter MAY be set on any property where conveying authorship is desired. It names the author as a free-text value. The parameter value MUST NOT be empty. Implementations MUST take care to quote the name part; if otherwise, the part will not be a valid "param-value" (see ). As an alternative or in addition to this parameter, the AUTHOR parameter allows identifying an author by URI (see ).

Format definition:

Example(s):

CREATED

Parameter name:

CREATED

Purpose:

Defines the date and time when a property was created in a vCard.

Description:

This parameter MAY be set on any property to define the point in time when the property was created. The value MUST be a valid TIMESTAMP value as defined in . Generally, updating a property value SHOULD NOT change the creation timestamp.

Format definition:

Example(s):

DERIVED

Parameter name:

DERIVED

Purpose:

Specifies that the value of the associated property is derived from some other property values in the same vCard.

Description:

This property parameter SHOULD be specified on a property if the property value is derived from some other properties in the same vCard. When present with a value of "true", clients MUST NOT update the property. As an example, an implementation may derive the value of the FN property from the name components of the N property. It indicates this fact by setting the DERIVED parameter on the FN property to "true".

Format definition:

Example(s):

LABEL

Parameter name:

LABEL

Purpose:

Used with the ADR property. Its value contains a formatted text representation of that address, e.g., for delivery.

Description:

defines the ADR property, noting that the property can also include a LABEL parameter to present a delivery address label for the address. But this parameter was not included in the IANA "vCard Parameters" registry () and, accordingly, is not a registered standard vCard element. This specification defines and registers the LABEL parameter for use with the ADR property as originally intended.

Format definition:

Example(s):

The LABEL parameter as illustrated in the ADR property example in .

PHONETIC

Parameter name:

PHONETIC

Purpose:

Defines how to pronounce the value of another property in the same vCard.

Description:

This property parameter indicates that the value of its property contains the phonetic representation of another same-named property in the same vCard. Exemplary uses are defining how to pronounce Japanese names and romanizing Mandarin or Cantonese names and address components. The parameter value indicates the phonetic system and MUST be one of the values enumerated in the IANA "vCard Parameter Values" registry. This specification defines the following values:

"ipa":

denotes the International Phonetic Alphabet.

"jyut":

denotes the Cantonese romanization system "Jyutping".

"piny":

denotes the Standard Mandarin romanization system "Hanyu Pinyin".

"script":

denotes the unknown phonetic system. The SCRIPT parameter MUST be set in addition to the PHONETIC parameter.

The value type of the property on which the PHONETIC parameter is set MUST be of the same type as its related property. If a component value is set in the property on which the PHONETIC parameter is set, then a component value also MUST be set at that same position in the related property. On the other hand, not every component value in the related property needs to have a phonetic representation. The ALTID () parameter MUST be set with equal values on both the related property and the property having the PHONETIC parameter set. If more than one same-named property has both the PHONETIC parameter set and an equal ALTID parameter value, then at most, one of these properties MAY not have the LANGUAGE parameter set, and all others MUST have the LANGUAGE parameter set. The LANGUAGE parameters MUST NOT have equal values. The LANGUAGE parameter value SHOULD NOT contain a script subtag in its Language-Tag value, and any such subtag MUST be ignored in favor of the SCRIPT parameter value. This specification defines the PHONETIC parameter for use with the ADR and N properties.

Format definition:

Example(s):

PROP-ID

Parameter name:

PROP-ID

Purpose:

Identifies a property among all its siblings of the same property name.

Description:

This parameter uniquely identifies a property among all of its siblings with the same name within a vCard. A valid PROP-ID value must be of 1 and a maximum of 255 octets in size, and it MUST only contain the ASCII alphanumeric characters ("A-Za-z0-9"), hyphen (-), and underscore ("_"). The identifier's only purpose is to uniquely identify siblings; its value has no other meaning. If an application makes use of PROP-ID, it SHOULD assign a unique identifier to each sibling property of the same name within their embedding component. The same identifier MAY be used for properties of a different name, and it MAY also be assigned to a same-named property that is not a sibling. Resolving duplicate identifier conflicts is specific to the application. Similarly, handling properties where some but not all siblings have a PROP-ID assigned is application-specific.

Format definition:

Example(s):

]]>

SCRIPT

Parameter name:

SCRIPT

Purpose:

Defines the script that a property value is written in.

Description:

This parameter allows defining a script for a property value without also defining a language as the LANGUAGE parameter would. The value MUST be a script subtag as defined in . This specification makes use of the SCRIPT parameter in combination with the PHONETIC parameter.

Format definition:

Example(s):

SERVICE-TYPE

Parameter name:

SERVICE-TYPE

Purpose:

Defines the online service name associated with a messaging or social media profile.

Description:

This parameter MAY be specified on an Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol (IMPP) or a SOCIALPROFILE property to name the online service associated with that property value. Its value is case-sensitive; its letter cases MUST be preserved. Several vCard address book implementations currently use an experimental X-SERVICE-TYPE parameter. This specification provides an IANA-registered parameter for the same purpose.

Format definition:

Example(s):

USERNAME

Parameter name:

USERNAME

Purpose:

Defines a username such as the user of a messaging or social media service.

Description:

This parameter MAY be specified on an IMPP or a SOCIALPROFILE property to name the user with that property value. Its value is case-sensitive; its letter cases MUST be preserved. The IMPP or SOCIALPROFILE value type MUST be URI.

Format definition:

Example(s):

New Values

Billing Address Type Value

Value:

billing

Purpose:

Indicates using this address for billing, e.g., to send invoices to.

Conformance:

This value can be used with the TYPE parameter applied on the ADR property.

Example(s):

Delivery Address Type Value

Value:

delivery

Purpose:

Indicates using this address for delivery, e.g., to send packages to.

Conformance:

This value can be used with the TYPE parameter applied on the ADR property.

Example(s):

Security Considerations This specification extends "vCard Format Specification" . The same security considerations as outlined in apply.

IANA Considerations

Changes to the vCard Properties Registry

New vCard Property Definitions IANA has added the following entries to the "vCard Properties" registry, as defined in . New vCard Properties

Namespace	Property	Reference
	CREATED	RFC 9554,
	GRAMGENDER	RFC 9554,
	LANGUAGE	RFC 9554,
	PRONOUNS	RFC 9554,
	SOCIALPROFILE	RFC 9554,

Updated vCard Properties IANA has added of this document as a reference for the ADR property and of this document as a reference for the N property in the "vCard Properties" registry.

Changes to the vCard Parameters Registry IANA has added the following entries to the "vCard Parameters" registry, as defined in . New vCard Parameters

Namespace	Parameter	Reference
	AUTHOR	RFC 9554,
	AUTHOR-NAME	RFC 9554,
	CREATED	RFC 9554,
	DERIVED	RFC 9554,
	LABEL	and RFC 9554,
	PHONETIC	RFC 9554,
	PROP-ID	RFC 9554,
	SCRIPT	RFC 9554,
	SERVICE-TYPE	RFC 9554,
	USERNAME	RFC 9554,

Changes to the vCard Property Values Registry IANA has added the following entries to the "vCard Property Values" registry, as defined in . New vCard Property Values

Property	Value	Reference
GRAMGENDER	animate	RFC 9554,
GRAMGENDER	common	RFC 9554,
GRAMGENDER	feminine	RFC 9554,
GRAMGENDER	inanimate	RFC 9554,
GRAMGENDER	masculine	RFC 9554,
GRAMGENDER	neuter	RFC 9554,

Changes to the vCard Parameter Values Registry IANA has added the following entries to the "vCard Parameter Values" registry, as defined in . New vCard Property and Parameter Values

Property	Parameter	Value	Reference
ADR	TYPE	billing	RFC 9554,
ADR	TYPE	delivery	RFC 9554,
ADR, N	PHONETIC	ipa	RFC 9554,
ADR, N	PHONETIC	jyut	RFC 9554,
ADR, N	PHONETIC	piny	RFC 9554,
ADR, N	PHONETIC	script	RFC 9554,

References Normative References IIT-CNR/Registro.it Fastmail Informative References Ribose Ribose Spherical Cow Group other CLDR committee members IPA

Acknowledgements The definition and examples of the PHONETIC and SCRIPT parameters are based on the early draft version of .